[D. G. C. Macnabb] David Hume His Theory of Knowl(BookZZ.org)

DAVID HUMEHUTCHINSON'S UNIVERSITY LIBRARY PHILOSOPHY

EDITOR: PROFESSOR H. J. PATON M.A., F.B.A., D.Litt., LL.D.

White's Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Oxford

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DAVID HUMEHIS THEORY OF KNOWLEDGEAND MORALITYby D. G. C. MACNABB, M.A. FELLOW AND LECTURER IN PHILOSOPHY, PEMBROKECOLLEGE, OXFORD

HUTCHINSON'S UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Hutchinson House, London, W.I

New York Melbourne Sydney Cape Town

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First Published - 1951

Printed in Great Britain by William Brendon and Son, Ltd. The Mayflower Press (late ofPlymouth) at Bushey Mill Lane Watford, Herts.

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CONTENTSPreface 7Biographical Note 9Introduction 13

1. The distinction as drawn by Hume 232. The true basis of the distinction 253. The derivation of ideas from experience 271. Realism, conceptualism and nominalism 33

2. Hume's advance on Berkeley's nominalism 361. The four kinds of assurance 402. Relations of ideas and matters of fact 433. A priori and empirical propositions 461. Factual inferences and causal relations 492. The relation of cause and effect 503. Our conviction that every event has a cause 554. Our beliefs in specific causal connexions 591. The nature and causes of belief 682. States of mind which simulate belief 761. The probability of chances and the probability ofcauses 832. Habit and expectation 923. Unphilosophical probability 944. Scepticism 100

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1. The question and the answer 1032. The importance of the answer 1073. Objections to Hume's answer 1121. The problem 1182. Hume's "solution" 1233. Criticism of Hume's "solution" 1291. Outline of Hume's views 1372. The errors of metaphysicians 1393. Self-consciousness and personal identity 146

Chapter I. INTRODUCTORY 1551. Reason alone never influences action 1592. The indirect influence of reason on action 1633. The influence of "reason" improperly so-called 1654. Challenge to Rationalists 1671. Nature, convention and the moral sentiment 1712. The general argument for the artificiality of justice 1733. The utility of justice and how it was discovered 1764. The "moral beauty" of justice 1805. Justice and self-interest 1806. Justice and the public interest 1821. The psychology of the moral sentiment 1852. The correction of sympathy in moral judgements 191

Appendix: THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 199Index 205

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PREFACEIN this short book I have tried to make clear to readers who are not principally or

professionally engaged in the study of philosophy, the reasons why Hume'sphilosophical works are studied with such interest today by professional philosophers.Though Hume is well able to speak for himself, and I would much rather hear thatanyone had been reading Hume than that he had been reading this book, there areobstacles to the understanding of him which I hope to help to remove.

The "Treatise of Human Nature" is a work of complex construction, full of intricateand sustained argument, written in the full fervour of youth and new discovery, noteasily grasped as a whole, or seen in relation to modern terminologies and habits ofthought. The Enquiry 1 is a cooler work of conscious elegance, far superior in style; init all Hume's energies were bent on recommending his philosophy to the calm,leisured, polite, intellectual "republic of letters" of the eighteenth century. Theatmosphere of that society hangs like a veil between the author and the modernreader. If I can clarify and make alive the new discoveries of the Treatise, and showtheir connexion with problems still vexing today, if I can draw aside the veil obscuringthe restatement of these discoveries in the Enquiry, I shall have succeeded in mypurpose.

I have given references to the page numbers of the Everyman edition of the Treatise,as being that which most readers are most likely to be able to obtain. The Enquiry isnot published in that series, and I have referred to the marginal numbering in the(second) edition by L. A. Selby-Bigge ( Oxford University Press, 1902). 2 I have calledthese number-

____________________1i.e., "An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding" and "An Enquiry concerning thePrinciples of Morals".

2In Part I of my book references to "Enquiry" are to the Enquiry concerning theHuman Understanding, in Part II they are to the "Enquiry concerning the principlesof morals". In Part I page references to the Treatise refer to Vol. I of the EverymanEdition and in Part II to Vol. II.

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ings paragraphs, to avoid confusion with Hume's own "sections", though they are notalways single paragraphs in the typographical sense.

Readers desiring more advanced works on Hume and his philosophy should consultJohn Laird, "Hume's Philosophy of Human Nature" ( Methuen, 1932), N. Kemp Smith,"The Philosophy of David Hume" ( Macmillan, 1941), C. W. Hendel, "Studies in thePhilosophy of David Hume" ( Princeton, 1925), B. M. Laing, "David Hume" ( London,1932), J. Y. T. Greig, "David Hume" and "Hume's Letters". Hume's own autobiography,written shortly before his death, is published in "Letters of David Hume to WilliamStrahan", by G. Birkbeck Hill ( Oxford University Press, 1888). An interesting andconstructive discussion of Hume's theory of perception is given in Professor H. H. Pricebook "Hume's Theory of the External World" ( Oxford University Press, 1940).

In addition to the authors mentioned above and in the text, I am deeply indebted toProfessor H. J. Paton for reading the entire manuscript and making many valuablesuggestions, and to my wife for her assistance in correcting the proofs and compiling

the index.

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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTEIN view of the abundance of biographies of Hume, I shall give only a short account ofhis life and personality.

Hume was born at Edinburgh in 1711, of a poor but wellconnected family of landedgentry, his father owning an estate called, "Ninewells" near Berwick. He passedthrough the ordinary course of education at Edinburgh University and was destined byhis family for the law. But, to use his own words, he "was seized very early with apassion for literature" and "found an insurmountable aversion to everything but thepursuits of philosophy and general learning". Books on law were secretly neglected infavour of Cicero and Virgil.

After an unsuccessful attempt to gratify his family by going into a business in Bristolin 1734, he went to France to study in a country retreat, adopting a plan of life whichhe thereafter consistently adhered to, by which "he made a very rigid frugality supplyhis deficiency of fortune". In France he composed the "Treatise of Human Nature"(between the ages of 23 and 26).

He returned to London in 1737 and published the Treatise in 1738. According toHume's autobiography it "fell dead-born from the press". Nevertheless, the sales wereconsiderable, and though it was published in three separate successive volumes, thethird volume (Book III; "Of Morals") was accepted for publication in 1740. It alsoelicited a long and foolishly abusive review in the "History of the Works of theLearned", which probably seriously upset Hume's self-esteem, always distinctly tenderin literary matters. The Treatise was published anonymously.

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From 1737 to 1745 Hume lived with his mother and brother at Ninewells, recoveringfrom the blow, re-learning Greek, and writing and publishing a small volume of"Essays, Moral and Political".

In 1745 Hume made an unsuccessful bid for the vacant chair of "Ethics and pneumaticphilosophy" at Edinburgh, and accepted a vexatious appointment as resident tutor tothe young Marquis of Annandale. This appointment fortunately only lasted a year, andsoon afterwards the Marquis was certified insane.

In 1746 Hume had his only taste of military adventures; he accompanied General St.Clair as secretary on an abortive expedition directed against the coast of Brittany, andlater, in the same capacity, on a diplomatic mission to Turin and Vienna. On the latterexpedition he wore the uniform of an officer, in which, according to the Earl ofCharlemont, he cut a very peculiar figure. The same authority gives us an account ofHume's personal appearance, which, he adds, belied his real character to anunparalleled extent. "His face was broad and fat, his mouth wide, and without any

other expression than that of imbecility. His eyes vacant and spiritless, and thecorpulence of his whole person was far better fitted to communicate the idea of aturtle-eating Alderman, than of a refined philosopher. His speech, in English, wasrendered ridiculous by the broadest Scotch accent, and his French was, if possible, stillmore laughable". 1

The "Enquiry concerning Human Understanding" was published in 1748, and the"Enquiry concerning the principles of Morals" in 1751. The latter he regarded as"incomparably the best" of all his works. Though more respectfully reviewed, indeference to Hume's reputation as author of the Essays, these publications attractedlittle more attention than the Treatise. Hume was mortified but not discouraged.

In 1752 Hume was appointed librarian to the Faculty of Advocates in Edinburgh andset up house with his sister in Edinburgh. He now turned his attention to History, astudy facilitated by his access to the library. He wrote History back-

____________________1Memoirs of Charlemont, I. 15.

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wards; first "The History of Great Britain" in two volumes ( James I to the Revolution),published 1756; then the "History of England under the House of Tudor" ( 1759);finally the "History of England from the Invasion of Julius Cæsar to the Accession ofHenry VII" ( 176l). After writing these works, which brought him fame andconsiderable wealth, Hume contented himself with revising and correcting his works.

During the same period in which he wrote the histories, Hume also published his"Natural History of Religion" and his "Political Discourses", the latter work bringing himduring his lifetime an even greater reputation as an economist than that of hisillustrious friend, contemporary and compatriot Adam Smith.

Hume, sociable, hospitable, witty, famous, vain but not envious of merit in others,was now a leading figure in the literary world of the period, which has left us suchgreat names as Adam Smith, Dr. Johnson, Bishop Butler, Gibbon and Rousseau.

In 1763 Hume accompanied the Earl of Hertford, our ambassador, to Paris, and waslater appointed secretary to the Embassy. In 1765 he was left "chargé d'affaires" forsome months, during a change of ambassadors, and fulfilled his duties efficiently. Hewas a great social success in Paris society and enjoyed himself very much, though weare told his French accent did not improve. In 1769 he returned to Edinburgh.

In the spring of 1775 Hume became affected with cancer of the bowels, and soonrealised that he was not to recover. Unshaken in his assurance of total extinction,suffering no great pain, he faced and met his end in the approved Epicurean spirit; allwho saw him in his last days testify to the continuance of his courtesy, affability, witand kindness. He also continued sending corrections of his works to the printers to thevery last. He died on the 25th of August, 1776. His "Dialogues concerning NaturalReligion" (probably written mostly before 1751) and his autobiography were publishedafter his death in accordance with his will.

It is worth quoting from Hume's autobiography his summing up of his own character."I am, or rather was . . . a man of mild disposition, of command of temper, of anopen,

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social, and cheerful humour, capable of attachment, but little susceptible of enmity,and of great moderation in all my passions. Even my love of literary fame, my rulingpassion, never soured my temper, notwithstanding my frequent disappointments. Mycompany was not unacceptable to the young and careless, as well as to the studiousand literary; and, as I took a particular pleasure in the company of modest women, Ihad no reason to be displeased with the reception I met with from them". 1

The last statement in this quotation is well illustrated by an incident recorded byAlexander Carlyle. 2 Mrs. Adam, mother of the famous architects, at first refused toentertain Hume, because of his "atheism". But after he had been brought to dine withher under a false name she said that she liked "the large, jolly man who sat next me"best of all her sons' friends, and, on learning his identity, withdrew her objections,saying "He is the most innocent, agreeable, facetious man I ever met with".

____________________1Hume never married.2

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INTRODUCTIONA MAN who wants a philosophy by which to live, may be compared to a man whowants a house to inhabit or a ship in which to make a voyage; and like them herequires in his expert advisers two different capacities, the creative capacity toproduce a satisfying design, and the critical capacity to ensure the adequacy of thescantlings and the soundness of the materials and fastenings.

Hume is emphatically a philosopher of the critical kind. And his advice is essentiallywholesome. What he tells us to do is to examine our own nature, and the characterand limitations of our reason. We shall then not be tempted to adopt any pretentioussystems of philosophy, designs specifying materials which are not to be found inhuman nature, towers and pinnacles for which we cannot provide support, and ageneral lofty magnificence which is not in accordance with the requirements of ournature, but serves only to gratify an unjustifiable intellectual pride.

To drop the metaphor and quote Hume's own words, "Philosophical decisions", he tellsus in the penultimate section of the "Enquiry concerning the Human Understanding","are nothing but the reflections of common life, methodised and corrected . . ."; we"will never be tempted to go beyond common life, so long as we consider theimperfection of those faculties which we employ, their narrow reach, and theirinaccurate operations. While we cannot give a satisfactory reason why we believe,

after a thousand experiments, that a stone will fall or fire burn; can we ever satisfyourselves concerning any determination, which we may form, with regard to the originof worlds, the situation of nature, from, and to eternity?"

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Let us consider more closely what Hume can have meant when he said thatphilosophical decisions are nothing but the reflections of common life methodised andcorrected. How has it come about that the innocent and reasonable endeavour tomethodise and correct the "reflections of common life" has led to the invention of thetremendous metaphysical systems and the apparently insoluble metaphysicalconundrums which we read of in the works of famous thinkers? And what is Hume'sadvice as to what we should do and what we should avoid in prosecuting this laudableendeavour?In common life we find ourselves under a constant and unavoidablenecessity of making deliberate decisions which may roughly be classified in thefollowing way:1. We have to decide what are the observable circumstances in which we are placed

at any given time.2. We have to decide what are the probable but unobservable circumstances in

which we are placed at that time.3. We have to decide what actions of ours are possible in those circumstances.4. We Lave to decide what will be the probable consequences of the various actions

which are possible for us.5. We have to decide, in the light of the answers we have given to these four

questions, which action it is best to take.

Philosophy begins when we try to formulate and reflect on the principles we apply inmaking these decisions.

At first sight perhaps the task will not seem very formidable For making decisions ofthe first kind we accept the evidence of our senses, together with certain precautionsagainst illusions and hallucinations, and aided by the refinements of measurement andcalculation. For making decisions of the second, third and fourth kinds we accept theprinciple of induction, that rules which have been found to hold good in observedcases will also hold good in similar but unobserved cases.

It is when we come to decisions of the fifth kind that we usually first begin toexperience difficulties. For there seems to be a wide choice of principles on which aman may decide questions of good and evil and right and wrong; and the wider

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our acquaintance with life, the more clear it is that some people adopt one principleand some another, or at least appear to.

It has usually happened, as it did among the. Ancient Greeks, that philosophicalenquiries arose when sceptical and revolutionary thinkers challenged the acceptedprinciples for making moral decisions. But they have also arisen as a result of thechallenging of accepted methods of deciding questions of fact; for instance when the

use of auguries, divinations, astrology, and prophecies was challenged by theadvocates of scientific enquiry.

Such challenges forced men to reflect on the principles by which they decided thequestions of common life; to try to formulate them clearly, and finally to justify them.As soon as philosophy begins to attempt a selection between rival principles and ajustification of its selection, it begins to manifest one of its two major characteristics;it appears as a recommendation of a way of life, a practical philosophy.

The other major characteristic that philosophy manifests is that of providing areasoned account of the nature of the universe and of man's place in it. This feature ofphilosophy also arises naturally, because any principle of decision seems to implysome very general fact or facts about the nature of things. The use of the testimony ofthe senses seems to imply the existence of objects independent of the mind, butaccessible to it through the senses. Induction seems to imply natural laws whichdetermine events to a regular and reliable pattern. Moral decisions seem to implysome purpose in the scheme of things, or some objective standards of fittingness andunfittingness, or some needs inherent in the nature of man, which mark out for himgoals and ideals more imperative than the gratification of the impulse of the moment.The next step in philosophy is to endeavour to define these presuppositions, and togive reasons for supposing them to be true. Thus philosophy appears as speculativemetaphysics, an attempt to prove propositions about the very general nature ofthings.

What help has Hume to offer us in the choice of a philosophy of life and the difficultiesit involves? It is very natural to be philosophical. To continue to decide questions offact

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and questions of good and evil on principles which we can neither formulate nor justifyis neither admirable nor comfortable nor safe. As Plato says, the unexamined life is notworth living.

But if we go to the professional philosophers for help we find that all is not well withphilosophy as a science, as Hume tells us in the Introduction to the "Treatise ofHuman Nature".

"It is easy" he says "for one of judgement and learning to perceive the weakfoundation even of those systems, which have obtained the greatest credit. . . .Principles taken upon trust, consequences lamely deduced from them, want ofcoherence in the parts and of evidence in the whole, these are everywhere to be metwith in the systems of the most eminent philosophers, and seem to have drawndisgrace upon philosophy itself". Nor do we need to possess much judgement andlearning to be aware that something is wrong. "Even the rabble without doors mayjudge from the noise and clamour which they hear, that all goes not well within. . . .Disputes are multiplied as if everything was uncertain". The situation is not muchdifferent today.

What is the cause of this trouble? Philosophers, we have said, try to justify (or, insome cases, to discredit) by argument, propositions which must be presupposed in

any ordinary enquiry. They proceed, that is, as if beside the methods of observation,induction and deduction which we ordinarily employ, they had other methods by whichthey can establish or disprove those truths which the ordinary methods onlypresuppose.

Now, nobody really believes philosophers to possess or be able to acquire faculties ormethods of arriving at truth other than those we normally employ. Some persons mayhave strange powers, but it is not the authority of mystical experience, clairvoyance ormetempsychotic reminiscence which we require when we ask for a philosophy of life.Further, even if philosophers did possess such powers, they would be none the betteroff for philosophical purposes; for these philosophical powers and faculties would inturn need analysis and justification and so on ad infinitum.

The Rationalists had met this difficulty by claiming to

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discharge the whole task of speculative and practical philosophy by the use of puredeductive reasoning. It is philosophers of this kind in whom Hume is mainlyinterested. Their claim, according to him, is false. For he shows beyond all question,and by arguments whose validity is independent of any dubious psychological premisson which his system may appear to be based, that pure deductive logic can neverestablish any proposition asserting a matter of fact and existence, or decide a moralquestion. There is only one means of deciding questions of fact, he maintains; that isby consulting experience. Moral questions are ultimately questions of feeling.

In so far then as it is facts we require of a philosopher, Hume says he can only offerus facts about Human Nature, established by the Experimental Method. This methodwill show us how we do in fact form our ideas and how the understanding in factworks in making its theoretical and practical decisions. It will be clear, Hume thinks,from these facts, what are the limits of Human Enquiry. It will be clear that questionsabout "origins of worlds", and the ultimate causes of our sensations are beyond ourcapacity, for we have no experience to guide us, and only experience can decidequestions of fact.

Having realised this, "when we see that we have arrived at the utmost extent ofhuman reason, we sit down contented"; for, according to Hume, our desire formetaphysical knowledge will cease when we see that it is not to be had. "Despair hasalmost the same effect upon us with enjoyment" and "we are no sooner acquaintedwith the impossibility of satisfying any desire, than the desire itself vanishes". (Treatise, Introduction, p. 7.)

We may doubt whether even the majority of men have such a happy facility forreconciling themselves to disappointment as Hume here describes, presumably as theresult of observation of his own very philosophic self. But still we must admit that,when a child cries for the moon, there is little we can do but explain that the moon isout of his reach--and provide him with more accessible sources of entertainment.

But before going on to ask what other more accessible satisfactions Hume would offerus, we must consider some difficulties about the Experimental Method and askwhether

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it is really the only device on which Hume relies in answering our demands forphilosophical reassurance.

The main objection that may be raised is that his use of the method is circular. Byexperimental observation and inductive generalisation he seeks to show thatexperimental observation and inductive generalisation are the only ways in which wereach assurance of matters of fact. Now, if we are prepared to start by acceptingthese methods as valid, it is permissible to use them reflexively to examine their ownprocedure. But philosophical unrest proceeds precisely from this, that we are notprepared, without further argument, to accept the testimony of our senses and thevalidity of inductive generalisations, and are quite prepared to ask why we should notaccept as valid forms of deductive reasoning other than those which we normally use.To quell this unrest the Experimental Method by itself is powerless. It holds a mirrorbefore the mind's eye, but does not reconcile us to what we see.

The only other device available to a philosopher is the device which Hume uses,sometimes explicitly and consciously, sometimes without giving notice that he is awareof what he is doing. This device I will call "the Method of Challenge". 1 This method iscomplementary to the experimental method; by the latter Hume shows how wenormally do decide questions of fact, questions of logic, questions of value; if we thendemand some further source of knowledge by which we can be assured that theseprocedures are valid, Hume asks: "What sort of additional knowledge is it that yourequire? Make or cite a suggestion which has a clear meaning. Are there anyconceivable alternative procedures to those which I have described? If you canproduce any, I will undertake to convince you that it has manifest inconveniences,with which you would not willingly put up. Moreover, if you think you really distrustthe ordinary procedures which I have described, just try and do without them, putyour scepticism into practice. I am confident you will fail".

In this way the philosopher persuades his customer that

____________________1Sometimes, I admit, Hume does not use it when he ought to use it instead of theExperimental Method, as in his arguments for the derivation of every simple ideafrom a corresponding impression.

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he is asking for he knows not what, and induces him to be content with what he hasalready got. An honest kind of service, not often met with in material commerce, andfor which the customer naturally does not feel inclined to pay very much.

The Method of Challenge is a method of persuasion, not of proof. It is persuasion notproof that a man in a state of philosophical perplexity requires, persuasion to acceptthe first principles of all proofs. This method of persuasion, if successful, opens theway for further employment of the Experimental Method, which is a method of proof.

And it is by this method that the philosopher can show us where to find treasuresmore accessible than the moon we came to ask him for.

The Method of Challenge has reconciled us to accepting our natural condition, andusing with humility and confidence the faculties that go with it. Let us turn thosefaculties where alone the facts can be discovered which will suffice to direct us in theconduct of life; let us turn them on the nature of man in general, and our individualselves in particular, as revealed by experience. Let us study man's behaviour in allconditions, physical, political, social, economic. Let us study the causes and effects ofhis passions, the way his understanding develops and works, and the sources of hisfelicity and his misery. Unless we pursue this study we shall never obtain that wisdomof which philosophy is the love, the wisdom that provides a settled and satisfactoryway of life.

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PART IHUME'S ACCOUNT OF THEUNDERSTANDING

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CHAPTER ITHE DOCTRINE OF IMPRESSIONS AND IDEAS(Treatise Book I, Part I, Sect. I; Enquiry, Sect. I)1. The distinction as drawn by Hume

THE first part of Hume Treatise of Human Nature states certain doctrines, apparentlyof a pyschological kind, which are intended to serve as the first premisses of hissystem.

The first of these doctrines is that all the contents of consciousness, the perceptions ofthe human mind, admit of a certain classification, which begins with the distinctionbetween "impressions" and "ideas".

At first sight the distinction seems just, familar and easy. The instances Hume givesare clear. A sensation, such as one of sound, or colour, a feeling such as one ofwarmth or pain, a passion such as one of rage, are all impressions. A mental image,the sort of perception which represents a sensation or passion in memory orexpectation, is an "idea".

But if we ask what is the criterion of this distinction, the matter is not so clear asHume thought. He says that it consists in the force and vivacity of the "impressions" incontrast to the faintness of the "ideas". That there are difficulties about this isimmediately apparent from Hume's own admission that in fever, madness or strongemotion our ideas may approach in vivacity to our impressions, and that sometimesour impressions are so faint and low that we cannot distinguish them from ideas. Suchcases Hume apparently regards as rare, abnormal and unimportant. Even if they were,we should still be entitled to ask by what criterion he classifies as an "impression" theperception that is as faint and low as those he

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calls "ideas". The criterion must be other than that of superior liveliness, which exhypothesi does not apply.

But such cases are not so very rare, and not necessarily abnormal. Suppose you are ina boat at sea, visibility is bad, and you are straining your eyes to pick up a certainbuoy in a certain direction. A faint speck appears for a moment in your field of vision;did you see something raised on the top of a distant wave or did you only imagine it?Or suppose you are anxious to know if you are in the process of falling in love withMiss X. A perception occurs of which you ask whether it be a rather vividrepresentation of the feeling of jealousy of Mr. Y, or that very passion itself in a lowdegree. How are you to tell which it is?

Now in the case of the visual perception, though this doubt may cause us practicalconcern on the sea, it does not usually cause us theoretical concern. For we haveanother criterion, though it is not always so easy to use. A visual sensation is causedby light rays striking the retina of the eye and causing certain changes in our nervesand brain. A visual "mental image" is not so caused. Its causes are presumed to beeither purely psychological, or to be changes within the nervous system, not due inthe same direct way to light rays. Similarly with sounds and undulations in the air.

But for philosophical purposes we must notice three things about this way of drawingthe distinction.

First it admits by implication that there is no intrinsic observable difference, as Humesuggests, between a faint impression and a vivid image. The criterion is based on theircausal relationships.

Secondly, it does not apply to the case of passions. Here the nearest analogousdistinction depends on the effects of the perceptions. Real jealousy is what makes usbehave rudely to Mr. Y, or take considerable trouble to interfere with his enjoyment ofMiss X's company. Othello's jealousy was plainly real, judged by its effects on hisbehaviour, though its causes were imaginary.

Thirdly, this criterion assumes that physical reality is already known. It cannottherefore be used to draw a distinction between sensation and image that will servefor a logical

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foundation of our beliefs about the physical world. The evidence for the doctrines ofthe physicist and the physiologist about light rays and nervous discharges consists inthe end of sense-experiences of physicists and physiologists, their "observations". Andthese "observations" must be genuine sensations, "impressions", and not figments oftheir imaginations. When Hume introduces this distinction as the corner-stone of histheory of Human Knowledge, he presumably means to use it to explain how we obtainour knowledge, or what passes for such, of the physical world. He cannot therefore fallback on this basis for the distinction. 1

2. The true basis of the distinction

The distinction between impressions and ideas, if it is to serve as a basis for a theoryof knowledge, is not that between sensation (or passion) and mental image, and it isnot that between delusion and reality. Is there any valid distinction which we cansuppose Hume to have had in mind, but to have failed to express clearly, which mightserve this purpose? I think there is, and we can find it suggested in his own words.

Hume says (Treatise Book I, Part I, Sect. I) "Everyone of himself will readily perceivethe difference between feeling and thinking". Feeling, he implies, is having an"impression", thinking is having an "idea". Similarly in the Enquiry (Sect. II, para. 12)he gives "thoughts" and "ideas" as synonyms.

What philosophers have wished to refer to when they use the term "idea" in this wayis not, I suggest, primarily mental images, but whatever mental entity is used as asymbol in thinking. Often we use mental images as symbols in our thinking;

____________________1The term "impression" is, in virtue of its philosophical history, loaded withsuggestions of this criterion. It was used by medieval philosophers, by theoccasionalists, and by Locke to mean the effect produced on our sense-organs orbrain by the action of external bodies, whose existence was taken for granted, orfor the collateral effect on our consciousness. And this meaning of the term insertsitself at intervals into Hume's thought to the confusion of the reader. For instance,Treatise Book II, Part I, Sect. I. "Impressions of sensation are such as . . . arise inthe soul from the constitution of the body, from the animal spirits, or from theapplication of objects to the external organs", and Treatise Book I, Part I, Sect. IIwhere, he says, more cautiously, that impressions of sensation "arise in the souloriginally, from unknown causes".

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but often we use other symbols, words seen written, or heard spoken, or felt spoken,or felt as summarily outlined by very incomplete speaking movements of the vocal

organs; and often we have mental images which we do not use as symbols in thinking,as in dreaming, day-dreaming, and "imagining that we hear or see" something. In thelast sort of case, far from being used as symbols in thinking, they are the very thingsthat we think about, thinking of them, for instance, that they are appearances of realobjects.

It is clear, I think, that the distinction Hume really has in mind, and which he requiresfor his purpose, is that between what we think about, the given, and our thoughtsabout it, or the symbols by means of which these thoughts are thought. What is givento us to think about we may subsequently classify as a sensation, a passion, an imageor even an idea. For we can think about our own thoughts as Hume recognises whenhe later talks about "ideas of ideas".

In a passage which is particularly relevant to my present point, he says (Treatise BookI, Part III, Sect. VIII), "In thinking of our past thoughts we not only delineate out theobjects of which we were thinking, but also conceive the action of the mind in themeditation, that certain je-ne-sais-quoi, of which it is impossible to give any definitionor description, but which everyone sufficiently understands".

It is clear what Hume's difficulty here is; he has to explain the difference between theidea of my hat, i.e., thinking of my hat, and the idea of my idea of my hat, i.e.,thinking of the thought of my hat, as when I remember that I thought of fetching myhat, but did not do so. If the difference between an impression and an idea is solelythat of the superior vivacity of one pictorial representation over another, then the ideaof my hat and the idea of the idea of my hat must be indistinguishable; each will be afaint picture of a hat. But there is, he now discovers, something else represented inthe thought of my thought of my hat, i.e., the act of using an image of a hat tosymbolise my hat. In the thought of my hat this is not represented, but actually done.In the thought of my thought of my hat it is represented, but not actually done. Whatis actually done is

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something else; some symbol is used to represent my former act of using an image ofa hat to represent my hat.

To sum up: The distinction which Hume required and for which he was fumbling in hisdoctrine of impressions and ideas is the distinction between the given, or experience, 1

and our thoughts about the given. In Part I of the Treatise he confused this distinctionwith that between sensations and passions on the one hand, and mental images onthe other. The cause of the confusion was the fact that sensation and passion are thepart of the given about which we most often have to think, and that images, in mostpeople, are the most common symbols to use in thinking of them. When he came toreflect on "Ideas of Ideas" Hume saw that to have an "idea" is not merely to form apicture; for if it were, an idea and the idea of that idea would be indistinguishable. Hewas unable to remedy his account because he had not seen that thinking consists inthe use of symbols.

3. The derivation of ideas from experience

We are now in a position to consider Hume's second doctrine that every simple idea isderived from a corresponding impression. The doctrine is stated and professedlyproved as if it was equivalent to "Every simple image is derived from a correspondingsensation or passion". This proposition is not clearly intelligible, because the distinctionbetween a simple and a complex image is obscure; and the alleged proofs areinadequate, consisting merely of suggestions of experiments which have not in factbeen made and would be almost impossible to carry out; moreover there is asuggested experiment which Hume admits might prove an exception to the generalrule, the experiment of the missing shade of blue.

First as to the division of impressions and ideas into simple and complex. "Simpleperceptions", we are told, "are such as admit of no distinction nor separation". "Thecomplex are the contrary of these and may be distinguished into parts". The instancehe gives is that of the particular colour, taste and smell

____________________1By "experience" Hume means impressions taken collectively. On the view I amsuggesting it must be defined simply as that about which we think, or could think,as opposed to what we think about it.

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of an apple. Individually, each is a simple impression, together they form a complexone, that of the whole apple. Plainly there is some confusion here; the colour, tasteand smell of the apple are qualities of it, or if you please of our impression. They arenot parts of it. As far as parts are concerned, my impression or idea of an apple,conceived as a picture, may be divided and subdivided into parts almost as long asyou please; the only limit being the smallest visual area which I may be capable ofperceiving or imagining. It is plainly not such "minima visibilia" (or "imaginabilia") ofwhich Hume is really thinking, as is shown by the instance he takes.

Secondly, let us consider the "experiments" he cites as proofs of the proposition thatevery simple idea is derived from a corresponding impression. They are, first, "To givea child an idea of scarlet or orange, of sweet or bitter, I present the objects, or inother words, convey to him those impressions; but proceed not so absurdly, as toproduce the impressions by exciting the ideas". Secondly, "we cannot form toourselves a just idea of the taste of a pineapple, without actually tasting it". Thirdly,persons born blind have no ideas of colour, and persons born deaf have no idea ofsound.

Now these three observations all seem to be in some sense true. And we feel thatthere is some important epistemological proposition which they at least illustrate. Butit is easy to see that that proposition is not one about images. The propositions thatno child ever has an orange image before it has seen an orange object, thatcongenitally blind persons have no images of colour, and that no one has ever formedan image of the taste of a pineapple without actually having tasted one, arepsychological propositions for which it would be difficult, if not impossible, to provideadequate empirical proof.

What is hard to doubt is that no child knows what the word ("orange" means until ithas been shown an orange object and taught to call it "orange". It may, for all we can

tell, have had orange images; but it could not possibly have learned that they were"orange" images. Similarly congenitally blind persons may have coloured visualimages. But so long as they remain blind, no one can possibly teach them, and no onecan suggest how they could learn for themselves, that such experiences are

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what other people called "coloured images". Finally, even if I should by chance haveimagined or dreamed of the taste of a pineapple, until I have eaten a pineapple Icannot know that that dreamed or imagined taste was the taste of a pineapple.

The general proposition which these particular observations illustrate is anepistemological proposition; that to know the meaning of a word or other symbol, ourattention must be drawn to some experience, or "given", for which it is by custom orconvention used to stand.

Now "To know what the word 'orange' means" may not unnaturally be paraphrased"To know what orange is", and that may not unnaturally be paraphrased "to have theidea of orange". Consequently, our epistemological proposition may not unnaturally bephrased "To have an idea of 'x', I must have experienced 'x' ." This proposition is, Isuggest, at least part of what Hume wished to assert when he said that "Every simpleidea is derived from a corresponding impression".

We can now see the point of the distinction between simple and complex ideas. Theproposition "to have an idea of x, I must have experienced x" is not true withoutqualification. To take Hume's own example, I have an idea of the New Jerusalem,though I have not seen it. There is another way of learning the meaning of a symbol,besides having one's attention drawn to an instance of the sort of "given" for which itstands. I may learn it by being told its definition. Thus, to take a simple example, Imay learn what "awe" means by being told that awe is a combination of fear andrespect.

But to learn the meaning of a symbol in this way, I must understand the symbolsoccurring in the definition. These in turn may be explained by definition, but in the enddefinitions must work down to symbols whose meaning I have learned "ostensively",i.e., by having my attention drawn to instances of what they stand for.

Here, if anywhere, we shall find what Hume meant by a simple idea. Now it wouldseem that the meaning of some terms such as "red", "colour", "sound", "smell", etc.,can only be learned '"ostensively" because they stand for what some philosophers call"simple and unanalysable qualities". Red cannot be represented as any sort ofcombination of separately

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illustratable qualities. It is true it is a kind of colour and we can give other examplesof colour; but what red is in addition to being a colour, the sort of colour that it is,can only be indicated by exhibiting red objects and contrasting them with objectswhich are not red. In this sense such terms as "red" may be said to stand for simple

1

ideas. But there are other indefinable terms, whose meaning can only be learnedostensively, which no one would say stand for simple ideas; e.g., "nation", "in love".

Hume should therefore have substituted the distinction between definable andindefinable terms for that between complex and simple ideas. And instead of sayingthat every simple idea is derived from a corresponding impression, he should havesaid that every indefinable term can be explained "ostensively", by indicating the sortof experiences to which it refers.

The reason why it is difficult to doubt the truth of this proposition is that it isimpossible to think of any other way in which such terms could acquire a meaning, orto produce an instance of a significant term whose meaning cannot be given bydefinition, and which is not used to refer to experiences of some recognisable sort.

It is really a case of Hume's method of challenge. As he himself says (Enquiry, para.14), "those who would assert that this proposition is not universally true, have onlyone and that an easy method of refuting it; by producing that idea which, in theiropinion, is not derived from this source. It will then be incumbent on us, if we wouldmaintain our doctrine, to produce

____________________1A sort of meaning can be attached even to these terms in the other way, bydefinition or description. For instance, granting that fear is a simple andunanalysable feeling, it would be possible for a person who never felt it or imaginedit to learn that "fear" means what other people feel when they are in danger, andthe perception of that danger causes them to tremble, go white, etc. Such a personwould in a way know what "fear" means, but he would not know its full or propermeaning. Philosophers would say that he knew fear "by description" but not "byacquaintance". In Hume's problem of the missing shade of blue, the man issupposed to know the missing shade by description, as the shade intermediatebetween two shades with which he is acquainted. The unimportant psychologicalquestion which Hume asks is simply, could he form an image of the missing shadealthough he only knew it by description, not by acquaintance? Hume rightly feelsthat the question is unimportant, but does not see why.

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the impression or lively perception which corresponds to it". 1

I do not think Hume has here propounded his challenge in the most formidablepossible way. The sort of argument he envisages might end in a deadlock. Someonemight produce for instance the idea of necessary connexion (between a cause and itseffect), and allege that this was a simple idea not derived from some givenexperience, an "a priori", or "innate" idea. Hume would answer by producing the feltcustomary determination of the mind to pass from the belief in the cause to theexpectation of the effect, and say, "that is the impression from which your idea isderived" His opponent might then reply "that is not what I mean by causal necessity.The expression plainly has another meaning, but you cannot produce the impressionfrom which it is derived. This shows there are innate ideas, of which this is anexample".

Hume's only alternative to accepting a deadlock would be to say "what possiblegrounds have you for saying that the expression has a 'meaning' unless you can eitherdefine it or indicate the sort of experience to which it is used to refer? How else haveyou learned a meaning for it, and how do you propose to teach your children itsmeaning, or ensure that they use the term in the same way as you do?" Or to put itin another and more tiresomely philosophical way "what on earth do you mean bysaying it has a meaning? please explain".

The importance of the question has now, by accident as it were, become apparent. Onit turns the time-honoured question of innate ideas. From the time of Plato onwardsphilosophers had maintained that we have ideas not derived from what is given inexperience, ideas by means of which we can reason about a reality beyond the reachof experience, the abstract realm of pure mathematical forms, the active substancesfrom which our sense-experiences spring, the spiritual world of immortal souls ofwhich Theology speaks. These ideas, such as unity point, straight line, substance,activity, necessity, spirit, being, they tended to call "innate", meaning that they are apart of the intellectual equipment with which God has endowed us, or in later times "apriori", a more cautious term,

____________________1Compare Treatise Book I, Part I, Sect. I, p. 13, where the word "challenge" isactually used.

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indicating the supposed non-experiential nature of these ideas without makingtheological assumptions.

Hume is an empiricist, that is he denies that there are any such ideas, and assertsthat all our ideas are derived from experience, that we can only think about what isgiven us in experience. His doctrine of impressions and ideas is intended to be a newand incontestable way of putting the empiricist position.

Finally, I would suggest that it is a mistake to think that the position I have stated isexclusively concerned with language in the ordinary sense of public spoken or writtensymbols. A man born blind who nevertheless enjoyed visual images would be unableto converse about them with other people in any public language. But he might easilybe able to think about them to himself by means of some private symbolism of hisown invention. The same might be true of a mystic and his mystical experiences. Butstill it would be true that he could think of nothing but what was given him inexperience to think about, because he would only be able to think by means ofsymbols, and he could only fix the meanings of his symbols by relating them to certainexperiences or types of experience.

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CHAPTER IIABSTRACT IDEAS

(Treatise Book I, Part I, Sect. VII)1. Realism, conceptualism and nominalism

HUME'S views on abstract ideas do not play such a fundamental part in his system asBerkeley's rather similar views do in his. But they are interesting as a most forcibleand advanced statement of the nominalist as against the conceptualist position in thevenerable controversy between Realists, Conceptualists and Nominalists about thenature of "Universals". Not only ink, but blood was shed in the Middle Ages over thiscontroversy, but I do not propose to go into its history, as it has no direct bearing onthe important parts of Hume's philosophy. But we must try to understand andestimate the truth of what Hume says on this subject, as it throws some light on hisconception of the nature of thinking and of ideas.

In the last chapter we concluded that "to have an idea of x" means to know what thesymbol "x" means, i.e., to know what it is habitually used to stand for. Now, if thesymbol "x" be a proper name, such as "Felix", there is no mystery in knowing what"Felix" stands for. It stands, say, for a certain cat with whom we are acquainted.

But let "x" be the general term "cat". What do we know when we know what "cat"stands for? It does not stand for any individual cat, nor yet any finite number ofactual cats. It stands, we feel inclined to say, for the whole class of cats, past,present and to come, wherever, whenever and in whatever numbers they exist. Or, wemay feel inclined to say, it stands

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for the common nature, "felinity", which is present in all cats and makes us call themall cats.

Now the whole class of cats, past, present and to come, is not a possible object ofacquaintance which we can exhibit to others or represent to ourselves in order to fixthe meaning of the name. It is some complicated sort of abstraction or figure ofspeech. To know the class of cats is to know what individuals to classify as cats, andwhat individuals not to. Or rather, since the individuals which are to be classified ascats are not a finite collection, like the twelve apostles, it is to be able to know of anyindividual whether it is a cat or not. Now how can we know of any individual that it isa cat, or that it is not a cat?

The realists said that in addition to particular cats, we are aware of another realexistence, called the universal cat, or the form of cathood or felinity in general; andthat we can tell of any given individual whether it is a cat or not by seeing whether itpartakes in this universal, whether the form of cathood is present in it. The universalor form was considered as a real thing, not a figment of the mind, but not a real thingin the sense of a natural object changing and moving in time and space in accordancewith the laws of nature. It was regarded as something timeless, unchangeable,intelligible rather than sensible. Cats may come and cats may go but cathood isalways one and always the same.

Conceptualists said that this was a gratuitous piece of mythology. They said that youcould tell whether any individual was a cat or not, by seeing whether it conformed to

the abstract general idea, or concept of cat. The archetype to which an individual mustconform to be considered a member of a class, and properly called by a class name,was, according to them, a representation in the mind, a peculiar sort of idea, generalin that it applied to all particular cats, abstract in that it represented only the commonfeatures of all cats abstracted from, i.e., shorn of, the particular features peculiar toindividual cats or certain species of cats.

Now what sort of an idea could this be, and how could we come by it?

The philosopher who, shortly before Hume's time, had

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made the most explicit effort to describe an abstract general idea and the process bywhich we form it was Locke.

Locke had shared Hume's conviction that all our ideas are derived from experience.Even those who did not share this conviction would have to admit that we got suchideas as that of "cat" from experience, whatever might be the case with abstruserideas. Locke had therefore tried to explain how we got from particular sensations toabstract general ideas. Like Hume he conceived ideas primarily as pictures, imageswhich copied given experiences. Particular ideas would then be copies in theimagination or memory of particular experiences. All experiences were particular.These particular ideas were the material from which abstract general ideas hadsomehow to be manufactured.

The recipe, according to Locke, was as follows: take a group of particular ideas whichare like one another, e.g., a group of ideas of particular cats. Now select one of them,it does not matter which. Get hold of a sort of mental indiarubber and rub out thefeatures of the picture which are not present in the other particular ideas. When youhave finished you will be left with a sort of partial, vestigial, highly abstract picture,representing only what is common to all the particular ideas you started with. This ishow an abstract idea is made, and it is general because it can be used to stand foranything which corresponds to it, i.e., has those common features, whatever otherpecularities it may have.

Now Berkeley had pointed out, and Hume agreed with him, that this recipe was quiteimpossible to follow, and the supposed resulting picture an absurdity. All cats arecoloured (including black, white and grey as colours) and all cats have fur. But somecats are one colour, some another, some have long hair, some have short. Try toeliminate from your mental picture of a sandy cat the sandyness of its colour, andretain the colouredness; try to eliminate the shortness of the fur but retain somerepresentation of furriness, without representing it as either short, long, or mediumlength fur. Plainly it cannot be done; if you rub out the particular colour, colour ingeneral goes with it; if you rub out the length of the fur, the fur goes with it.

Furthermore, Berkeley and Hume say, there is no need for

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these abstract general ideas. Particular ideas serve the purpose equally well, and arein fact what we use in general thinking. Locke admits that we start by noticing acertain sort of resemblance between certain particular ideas. It is this resemblancewhich makes us regard them as all of one class. Therefore to represent this class, andserve as a criterion for admitting and rejecting further candidates for admission, itsuffices to take the idea of a particular typical member, and ask of any candidatewhether it has the required resemblance to that typical member.

Our idea of the typical member, say of the sandy, large, short-haired, mongrel cat"Felix", will represent him as he is with all his peculiarities. But in using him as ageneral symbol for any cat whatsoever, we ignore his peculiarities, and only attend tothe features in respect of which we require a resemblance in anything to be classifiedas a cat. And, as Hume says, we find this causes no inconvenience in our reasoning.

2. Hume's advance on Berkeley's nominalism

Hume's improvements on Berkeley's theory consist in his emphasis of the role playedby customary association and of the use of many particular images to illustrate thesort of resemblance required.

The relation between the word and the particular idea, left undefined by Berkeley, isdefined by Hume as a customary association. The "use" of the particular idea "to standfor" all other resembling particular ideas, is according to Hume its power to revivethem by association.

In the case of a word with which we are familiar this power is not usually actuallyexercised. A single particular image is evoked and we feel that it has the power toevoke the other associated ideas if they are needed. One of the purposes 1 for whichthey may be needed is illustration. The more numerous and more varied are therepresentations of particular cats, remembered or imagined, actual or possible, thatwe form and

____________________1Another purpose is reasoning. The more extensive and varied our gallery of catimages, the better can we tell what propositions about cats are true, partly true,and false. An "abstract idea" or "generic image" would not serve this purpose.

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survey, the more clear do we make it to ourselves what we mean by cat, what is or isnot a cat, the sort of resemblance we require. The better we are able to do this, thebetter we understand the meaning of "cat". The process is what is often called"ostensive definition", performed for our own benefit in the imagination.

This view explains how we know what sort of resemblance we require betweeninstances of a given kind; it is the sort of resemblance that even the most diverse ofthe particular cases have to one another. To take Hume's example, a globe of whitemarble and a cube of white wood are diverse in substance, feel and shape, but alike incolour; together they illustrate the sort of resemblance we require between things thatare to be called white.

The merit of this view, if it be tenable, is that it explains, without speculativeassumptions, how we can mean something and know what we mean by a generalterm. To know what "cat" means is not to be aware of some metaphysical orintellectual archetype and know that "cat" is its name, and that "to be a cat" is toconform to or partake in it. It is more a "knowing how to" than a "knowing that", likeknowing how to drive a car. It is knowing how to use the word, what to apply it toand what not to apply it to. And just as a man knows how to drive a car if he hasacquired certain habits, so a man knows how to use a word if he has acquired certainhabits. All that we need to be acquainted with is the resemblance between theparticular instances, and between the utterances of the associated symbol.

Hume does also suggest that when we hear a word and understand it without reelingoff a string of illustrative pictures, it is not only true that we could do so, but we knowthat we could. "The word not being able to revive the idea of all these individuals, onlytouches the soul, . . . and revives that custom which we have acquired by surveyingthem. They are not really and, in fact, present to the mind, but only in power . . .(we) keep ourselves in a readiness to survey any of them, as we may be prompted bya present design or necessity".

To attempt an analysis of that state of mind in which we

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know that we could do something which we do not actually do would take us too farinto the controversial hinterland of Epistemology for the scope of this book. We mustbe content to admit that it occurs and that its occurrence in this particular form seemsto be a necessary part of understanding the meaning of a word, as we understand itwhen in ordinary discourse someone speaks of an object not present to our senses ormemory. It must be admitted it is something of a mystery.

The dangers of the realist and conceptualist views, as seen by the empiricist, are thata realist who thinks he is acquainted with universals will be tempted to regard thatacquaintance as a source of knowledge about reality other than and superior toexperiment and observation by the senses, while a conceptualist who thinks he has"abstract" ideas, will be tempted to think that they are representations of possibleobjects. For instance, if a man thinks he has an abstract idea of shape, which justrepresents shape without colour, warmth, texture, or any sensible quality, he will betempted to think there may be objects which have only shape and size and nosensible qualities. This according to Berkeley and Hume is nonsense, and according toBerkeley, dangerous nonsense.

Let us then try and summarise Hume's contribution to the problem of universals.

There are two questions to which he suggests answers. First, what is it that I perceiveabout two or any finite number of cats that makes me class them together and callthem all "cats"? His answer is a certain sort of resemblance between them; not somerelationship between each of them and some fictitious entity, the eternal form ofcathood, or the abstract archetypal concept of cathood in the mind. (Whose mindanyway?)

Secondly, what happens in my mind when I think about cats in general, i.e., when I

use the word "cat" not merely to stand indifferently for this or that particular cat, butfor any cat whatsoever? His answer is that the word "cat" sets a mental custom ordisposition in operation, or at least puts it in readiness to operate if required. Thisdisposition is simply our ability to recognise cats when we see them, a disposition tocall "cats" only such particulars as resemble the cats we have

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known in the way they all resemble one another; with it goes an ability to imagine ordescribe an indefinite number of possible particulars such as we should call "cats" if wemet them. It is the feeling of this readiness, consciousness that we have this custom,which makes us say we know what "cat" means or "have the general idea" of cat. It isthe association of the word with a custom that gives it its generality, its capacity tostand for "any" cat.

His answer to the first question is the same as that of Berkeley; his answer to thesecond question is an advance on Berkeley's view, in so far as it seeks to clarify thenotion of generality, the Meaning of "any", by relating it to custom.

Hume's advance on Berkeley may be put thus. The general term "cat" means "anycat". Now a picture of a particular cat, or a set of such pictures, can illustrate what iscommon to those particular cats, the sort of resemblance they have to one another. Itcannot exhibit what we mean by "any". "Any" stands for nothing that is picturable. Itis not a feature of the particular objects which make up the real world, thoughresemblance and difference are. But a custom or power does seem to containgenerality in it.

According to this view the term "cat" means "any cat" in the sense of "any cat you liketo mention". It means this because it touches off the disposition of the mind to giveinstances of and recognise instances of cats indefinitely. "Any cat likes milk" is as itwere a challenge rather than a statement; it challenges anyone with the necessarymental custom to produce an instance of a cat that does not like milk.

Berkeley had seen that the general and the indeterminate could not berepresentatively symbolised, but could be symbolised by a conventional symbol. Buthe did not suggest how this could be done. Hume did.

More extended analysis and criticism of this suggestion of Hume's may be found in apaper by Professor Aaron on "Hume's Theory of Universals" in Proceedings of theAristotelean Society, and in a Lecture by Professor H. H. Price on "Thinking andRepresentation" ( Henriette Hertz Lecture, British Academy 1946).

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CHAPTER IIIKNOWLEDGE AND PROBABILITY(Treatise Book I, Part III, Sect. I; Enquiry, Sect. IV,Part I)

1. The four kinds of assurance'

HUME contends that there are only four ways in which we can assure ourselves of thetruth of a proposition. First perception by sense or introspection, secondly memory,thirdly deductive demonstration, and fourthly probable reasoning. He has somethingimmensely important to maintain about the last two methods; namely, that deductivedemonstrations cannot by themselves prove "matters of fact and existence", and thatprobable reasonings, which can, are always founded on experience.

The consequence of this doctrine is that no facts about the world can be establishedby reasoning independently of experience; and that is precisely what metaphysiciansof the rationalist school had attempted to do. For instance, Parmenides had professedto prove that there was no void or empty space in the universe, because void is thenon-existence of anything, and to assert the existence of non-existence isselfcontradictory; and some philosophers, e.g., Descartes, had professed to prove theexistence of God on the grounds that God is by definition a perfect being, and non-existence is an imperfection.

It is true that most people are not misled by such sophistries and dismiss themwithout thought as fine-spun nonsense, just as they dismiss the theory that we have"astral bodies" which, during our sleep, enjoy voyages and adventures on the "astralplane". But it is always possible that some accident of

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personal influence or unusual experience may lead them to give serious considerationto such nonsense; if they are then unable to say just why it is nonsense, they mayquickly find themselves beginning to tend to believe it, or at least admit that there"may be something in it". It is, therefore, not a useless enterprise on the part ofphilosophers to attempt to show just why and in what sense nonsense is nonsense.

We will now take these four sources of assurance in order.

Hume's views on sense perception are contained in the section of the Treatise called"on Scepticism with regard to the senses". This is one of the most difficult parts ofHume's philosophy, and will be considered in detail later. The general upshot of it isthat sight and touch do in fact give us an assurance of the continued and independentexistence of bodies. This assurance, though it cannot be rendered wholly satisfactoryto our reason or reconciled with the conclusions of natural science, in practice needsno such justification, since no sceptical arguments will ever weaken it; consequentlythe independent existence of bodies, revealed to us by our senses, is "something wemust take for granted in all our reasonings". Anticipating this conclusion Hume takes itfor granted in his reasonings concerning knowledge and probability.

The subject of memory is one on which Hume is notoriously weak; but no worse inthat respect than other philosophers of his own and earlier times. To remember,according to Hume, consists in having ideas, conceived again as mental pictures. Howdo these pictures differ from "ideas of the imagination"? Hume mentions twodifferences.

First (Treatise Book I, Part I, Sect. III) they are more vivid, being intermediate in

force and vivacity between an impression and a mere idea, or idea of the imagination;secondly (Part III, Sect. V) "Memory preserves the original order and position of itsideas, while the imagination transposes and changes them as it pleases".

By the "original order of the ideas" I take Hume to mean an order the same as that ofthe impressions from which the ideas are derived. As Hume immediately admits, "thislatter difference is not sufficient to . . . make us know the one from the other". For itis only by memory that we can know what the

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original order of the impressions was. Hume's reference to this difference amounts tono more than saying that by an idea of memory we mean a true picture of pastexperiences. The question remains how we distinguish a true picture from a false.

To answer this question Hume can only fall back on the criterion of force and vivacity.If a mental picture lacks the force and vivacity which would mark it as presentimpression, yet possesses the kind and degree of force and vivacity which constitutebelief, and if that belief bears on the face of it some kind of reference to past time,then it is a memory belief; unless, of course, it is a belief about the past reached byinference.

The mysterious "past reference" of an idea of memory is mentioned by Hume in thepassage about the memory of a past idea (Treatise Book I, Part III, Sect. VIII); but noattempt at clarification is made. In addition to the mysteriousness of past reference,Hume's whole account of memory is infected with the confusion between mentalimages and "ideas" considered as the units of thought, and participates in theweakness which this confusion confers on his account of belief in general, which mustbe considered later.

Let us for the moment content ourselves with saying in Hume's favour, that if he hasfailed to produce an intelligible account of memory no other philosopher has done soeither. And if we accept the familiar fact that in memory we have noninferential beliefsabout our own past experiences, in which we repose a confidence inferior only to ourconfidence in our present sense perceptions, and which we use along with them as thestarting points of our reasoning concerning matters of fact, we are in a position tofollow the important contentions which Hume makes about that reasoning.

We come now to Hume's account of "demonstrative reasoning" and its limitations. Hisposition is stated in different ways in the Treatise and in the Enquiry. Let us begin withthe Treatise.

We are there told that the relations by the tracing of which reasoning is conducted areresemblance, identity, relations of time and place, proportions in quantity or number,degrees in any quality, contrariety, and causation.

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These are divided into two classes, first, such as depend entirely on the ideas whichwe compare together, and secondly, such as may be changed without any change in

the ideas. It is only the former class which are the province of demonstrativereasoning. The members of this class are four, resemblance, contrariety, degrees inquality and proportions in quantity and number.

Causation is, therefore, not an object of demonstrative reasoning, and since causationis the only relation which enables us to make inferences to matters of fact which wedo not immediately observe, matters of fact cannot be demonstrated.

Hume then proceeds to enquire how causal relationships are discovered, and answers"from experience"; and how they serve as the basis of factual inferences 1 , andanswers that the experience of constant conjunction generates a habit of expectationin the mind, the operation of which habit is the inference; we shall have much to sayabout this letter

2. Relations of ideas and matters of fact

We must now consider the distinction between "Relations of Ideas", relations whichdepend solely on the ideas compared, and factual relationships, those which may bealtered without altering the ideas.

If I endeavour to conceive a triangle whose internal angles together equal more thantwo right angles, I find I must conceive of something that is not a triangle; that is, if Icontinue to call it a triangle, I must have altered my idea of a triangle, modified themeaning of the term. For instance, if I call the three-sided figure which consists of twomeridians of longitude and a parallel of latitude a triangle, I am allowing figures withcurved sides to count as triangles. If, on the other hand, I try to conceive of the moonas being 5,000 miles nearer the earth than it in fact is, I do not have to alter my ideaof the moon. That is, in Hume's terminology, spatial relations are not relations ofideas.

Now it is at this point that someone will say, "Such a supposition would amount, forme, to an alteration of my idea

____________________1afactual inference" I mean one whose conclusion is a "matter of fact", not a"relation of ideas.

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of the moon. For I am well-informed on astronomical matters, and my idea of themoon is an idea of a body revolving round the earth at a certain distance. All that Ibelieve about the moon becomes a part of my idea of the moon, and I cannot supposeany of those beliefs false without altering my idea of the moon".

Such an objection is difficult to answer, yet we feel that the objector has somehowmissed Hume's point, possibly because Hume has not expressed himself correctly. Insome way we feel the moon would still be the moon if its orbit shifted closer to theearth, or were discovered to be closer to the earth than we had hitherto supposed.But a rectilinear triangle would no longer be a rectilinear triangle, if its internal angleswere not equal to two right angles.

The trouble can perhaps be put this way. People have had a number of differentbeliefs about the moon, about its size, motion, distance from the earth, etc. Yet theyhave all called it "the moon", and have meant the same thing by that term. Ifsomeone tells me that the moon weighs 100 tons, is made of Cheshire cheese and isabout 50 miles from the surface of the earth, I understand his meaning. And it is onlyon the assumption that he refers to the same thing by the term "the moon" as I do,that I can have a significant argument with him about his viewes

When Hume speaks of relations which can be changed without any change in theideas, he does not mean the private and peculiar ideas of individual persons, the sumtotal of their beliefs about the object in question. He means the public and commonidea of some object or class of objects, which must be known and accepted beforeany significance can be attached to questions and disputes about that object or classof objects. That is, I suggest, the settled, public habitual meaning of some symbol.

We can now see what is the difference he has in mind. You and I must agree on whatwe mean by a triangle before we dispute about the sum of its internal angles, and wemust agree on what we mean by the moon before we dispute about its distance fromthe earth. But if I wish to convince you that the internal angles of the triangle areequal to two right angles, I have only to appeal to the agreed meaning of the term

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"triangle" to show that so long as you stick to that meaning you can't deny theproposition without self-contradiction. But if I wish to convince you that the moon isso many thousand miles away I cannot do it in this manner. I must appeal to someobservations or measurements, that is to some experiences of certain astronomers.For no contradiction is involved in the denial of my proposition.

All these difficulties are by-passed by Hume in the Enquiry. He there starts bydistinguishing propositions expressing "Relations of Ideas" and propositions expressing"Matters of Fact". 1 The former are discovered by the mere operation of thought, bywhich we see that the denial involves a contradiction. The latter are not discoverablein this way; the contrary of any matter of fact is still possible, for it involves nocontradiction.

There is here no talk about "changing our ideas", and no discussion about what kindsof relationships can be relations of ideas. Hume passes straight from the propositionthat matters of fact are not demonstrable, since they involve no contradiction, to theproposition that all reasoning concerning matters of fact seems to be founded on therelation of cause and effect, and thence to the question how relations of cause andeffect are discovered.

The conclusion he wishes to reach is that relations of cause and effect are notdiscovered by demonstration. In the Treatise this is stated as self-evident. "Thepower, by which an object produces another, is never discoverable from their idea". Inthe Enquiry it is supported by the following argument:--

Causal relations are the foundations of reasoning about matters of fact.

If causal relations were demonstrable, matters of fact would be

demonstrable.

But matters of fact are not demonstrable.

____________________1There is an unfortunate ambiguity in Hume's use of this phrase, which causes someobscurity in his account of empirical reasoning. He uses it to mean both (a) aproposition whose contradictory is intelligible (a synthetic proposition) and (b) aproposition which asserts the existence of some object (an existential proposition).It is true that all existential propositions are synthetic, but the converse is false.e.g., there are synthetic hypothetical propositions which are not existential.

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Causal relations are not demonstrable.

From this point the argument is much the same in the two works.

3. A priori and empirical propositions

The distinction between relations of ideas and matters of fact is supremely important.Propositions asserting "relations of ideas", whose opposites are self-contradictory, havebecome known as "analytic propositions". Those of which this is not true, factualpropositions, have been named "synthetic". Propositions that can be ascertainedwithout appeal to experience are called "a priori", those that can only be ascertainedfrom experience "empirical". Hume's contention is that no a priori propositions aresynthetic, all a priori propositions are analytic, all synthetic propositions empirical.

This contention has become the corner-stone of modern empiricism, and its chiefweapon against rationalistic metaphysics. In practical life it is often of the lastimportance to be sure whether a proposition asserts a relation of ideas or a matter offact; muddle-headed and unscrupulous persons frequently attempt to prove matters offact by producing unanswerable truisms that really only assert relations of ideas.

Some time ago the governing body of an Oxford College was debating whether or notto insure its pictures, many of which were old masters. The philosophy tutor, who forone reason or another was against the proposal, produced the following argument."Insurance is an arrangement for the replacement of the articles insured in case ofloss; these pictures are irreplaceable, therefore they cannot be insured." No one couldanswer this, and the pictures were not insured.

Now if, persuaded of Hume's principles, we examine this argument, we see that itmerely asserts a relation of ideas, a logical connexion between the ideas of insuranceand replacement. All that can follow from this is that the contract into which it wasproposed that the College should enter with the Insurance Company was not properlyspeaking an insurance.

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The argument does nothing to decide whether the proposed contract would be

advantageous to the College or not. 1

____________________1A beautifully explicit instance of this fallacy is contained in a statement by theFrench Communist M. Maurice Thorez, published in The Times, February 23rd,1949. "First, the Soviet Union, the fatherland of Socialism", cannot, by definition,practise a policy of aggression and war, which is the characteristic of imperialistpowers. Secondly, the Communist position is based on facts, not on hypothesis. . .."

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CHAPTER IVCAUSALITY(Treatise Book I, Part III, Sects. II-VI)1. Factual inferences and causal relations

As we saw in the last chapter, the relation of cause and effect is of interest to Humeprincipally because he regards it as the foundation of all factual reasoning. So far wehave noted without comment Hume's premiss that all inferences to matters of fact notactually observed depend on the relation of cause and effect. We must now ask whatjustification this premiss

Hume himself considers the question in Section II of Part III of the Treatise. Hisargument is as follows.

"All kinds of reasoning consist in nothing but a comparison, and a discovery of thoserelations, either constant or inconstant, which two or more objects bear to eachother". Now there are three possible cases. (a) Where none of the objects is presentto our senses. In this case we can compare only our ideas of them, and the most thatcan result is the demonstration of a relation of ideas, an analytic proposition. (b)When all the objects are present to our senses. In that case we can arrive at asynthetic proposition, but we do so by perception, not by inference. We perceive asimilarity or a spatial or temporal juxtaposition of objects. (c) Where some of theobjects are present to our senses and the others are not. Given a certain smell, forinstance, I can infer that bacon and eggs are being cooked. In this case I "discover"(we are told later how) the causal relation between the smell which I perceive andbacon and eggs which I don't perceive, and from the smell plus this relation I infer theexistence of the other term of the relation.

Now Hume says the relation of cause and effect is the only relation in which anobserved object can be "discovered" to

D

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stand to an unobserved object, whose existence can thus be inferred.

The justification of this contention is really a challenge; show me a factual inferencefrom an observed to an unobserved object founded on a relation which is not eitheritself a causal relation, or known as the conclusion of some previous causal inference.All the cases which we at first feel inclined to adduce fail to meet this challenge. Wemight say, for instance, that from the identity of the chair I now see with that onwhich I sat yesterday I can infer that it will carry my weight. But, Hume says, (a) howdo you know that it is the same chair? Only by reasoning that if another but similarchair had been substituted for it, you would have observed certain effects which youdo not observe; and (b) how do you know that because the chair supported youyesterday it will support you to-day? Only because you know that the chair, in virtueof the shape, size, consistency, etc., which it still possesses, is capable of supportingyour weight; i.e., that the result of your sitting down on it will be rest and notcontinued motion towards the centre of the earth.

Again, from a photograph, you may infer the existence of an object resembling it. Butonly because you know how photographs are produced.

In general, whenever we can say of a given object x, that it must be related in acertain way, other than a causal way, to an object y which is not given, we mustjustify ourselves by saying why it should be so related. And the answer to such a"why?" will always turn out to be some statement about causes and effects. This isHume's ground for saying that all factual inferences are founded on the relation ofcause and effect.

The question remains to be answered, how do we discover causal relations? Hume'sanswer to this emerges from the discussion of the idea of cause which follows.

2. The relation of Cause and Effect (Treatise Book I, Part III, Sect. II)

Hume's task is to examine the idea of cause by searching for the impression orimpressions from which it is derived. For what given elements of experience is theterm "cause"

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used as a symbol? A prima facie analysis of the idea of cause. is given which sets themain problem for the remainder of Part III.

"Let us therefore cast our eyes", he says, "on any two objects which we call cause andeffect, and turn them on all sides in order to find that impression which produces anidea of such prodigious consequence".

He first notes that no quality of any object which we consider a cause can be theorigin of the idea. For there is no discoverable quality which is common to all objects,but all objects, we suppose, have their effects. It must therefore be some relation

among objects.

Hume then states what are the relations which are always either discovered, or, wherenot discovered, presumed to exist, between objects which we call causes and effects.It is necessary to add the qualification about presumed existence, because all thatHume purposes to do at present is to analyse the common idea of cause and effect,though that idea may be somewhat erroneous. The relations which he discovers arepriority in time (the cause prior to the effect), contiguity in time and place, andnecessary connexion.

Now plainly it is the necessary connexion which is the essential element in the idea. Itis the necessary connexion between a cause and its effect which justifies us ininferring from the one to the other, and whose presence we express by saying thatgiven (a) the cause, the effect (b) must attend it.

The question whether spatial and temporal contiguity and priority in time areindispensible elements in the idea is therefore of secondary importance. Thus he saysof spatial contiguity, "We may suppose it such (i.e., an essential part of the idea of acause), according to the general opinion, till we find a more proper occasion to clearup this matter, by examining what objects are or are not susceptible of juxtapositionand conjunction". The occasion is found in Part IV, Section V, where he points out thatsounds and smells, passions and volitions cannot properly be said to have shapes orpositions at all, but do enter into causal relationships. It is not, therefore his finalopinion that spatial contiguity is an essential part of the idea of causation.

The question of the time relation between cause and effect

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he never clears up. He gives what purports to be an argument to show that effectmust follow cause in time. But he declines to say whether he finds the argumentsatisfactory, and dismisses the affair as of no great importance.

The argument is really one side of a troublesome little dilemma, which may be statedas follows: Either all effects come into existence at the same moment as their truecauses, in which case the whole chain of causes and effects which make up the historyof the world must be telescoped into a single instant; or else some causes exist for afinite time without being attended by their effects, in which case they cannot be truecauses; they must be awaiting the concurrence of some other condition which isnecessary to render them effective.

Now it is important in itself to solve this dilemma, though it is true that the questionof the temporal relation between cause and effect is irrelevant to Hume's argument,which is concerned only with the necessary connexion, which alone renders theinference possible. The dilemma does show that it is unsatisfactory to think of a causeas Kant, for instance, defines it, as an event on which another event follows accordingto a rule.

Although this is how we think of it for many purposes in daily life, and in the earlystages of scientific investigation, it is not the sort of connexion which advancedsciences seek to establish. It you look up the laws in text books of physics and

chemistry, you will find that they do not tell you that if one sort of event occurs,another sort of event will follow. They state equations, or relations of functionaldependence of one measurable quantity on another.

A simple example is provided by the law which Archimedes discovered in his bath. Thisis usually stated "A body immersed in water loses in weight the weight of the waterdisplaced". Now if this meant that the event of the immersion of a body is followed bya loss in weight equal to that of the water it has displaced, we should be immediatelyentitled to ask, does the loss in weight take place instantaneously, immediately afterthe immersion, or is there a time lag, during which the weight so to speakevaporates? But it does not mean this. It means that, at any moment you like tochoose, the difference between the weight the body had or would have in air, and theweight

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it has or would have immersed in water, is equal to the weight of the water displaced,if and when it is displaced. It states an equation of the simple form x--y=z, by meansof which, given any two of the terms, you can infer the third.

But, although the law refers to any moment you like to choose, the operation of thelaw does not tend to reduce the chain of events to a point instant. The immersion of abody in water is a process which takes time, and it can remain immersed as long asyou please. But at any moment during that time its weight is the difference betweenits unimmersed weight and the weight of the water displaced.

Hume, then, was right in dismissing spatial and temporal contiguity and temporalpriority of cause to effect as unimportant elements in the popular notion of causation.What is common both to the popular vague notion and to the scientific notion is the"necessary connexion". Connexion need mean nothing more than some relationship orother, whatever relationship is expressed by the scientist's equation. It is rarely if eversimple temporal sequence. But it must be in some sense necessary"; it must bereliable, constant not only in the observed instances, but in the unobserved case whichwe wish to predict; otherwise inference is impossible, where questions of fact areconcerned.

Accordingly, he proceeds again to examine any case of causal connexion, in order tosee wherein its necessity lies. What is the impression from which this idea of necessityis derived? Again it is no quality of the objects. Survey your body immersed in thebath as long as you please; you will not perceive in it, or in the water, any necessityof losing weight. Nor is it any relation between the objects. The body is immersed inthe water, the loss of weight is equal to the weight of the water displaced. Butnecessity is neither immersion nor equality. We appear to have come to a dead end.

Hume, however, does not despair. Elsewhere he remarks, "there cannot be twopassions more nearly resembling one another than philosophy and hunting". 1 So hetakes a leaf from the hunter's book and proceeds to "beat about the

____________________1Treatise Book II, Part III, Sect. X.

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neighbouring fields" in the hope of hitting off the quarry, which he has failed to findwhere he first expected it.

The "neighbouring fields" are two connected questions, first "for what reason wepronounce it necessary that everything whose existence has a beginning, should alsohave a cause", and secondly, "why we conclude that such particular causes mustnecessarily have such particular effects; and what is the nature of that inference wedraw from the one to the other, and of the belief we repose in it".

I must pause at this point to emphasize the momentous nature of the hunt on whichHume is engaged; and since the hunt develops into a long and very intricate operationI will try to provide the reader in advance with a summary plan in order to help him infollowing it.

The quarry is the source of the idea of necessity; that idea is the foundation of all ourreasoning concerning matters of fact, that is of the whole of history, geography,cosmology, and all the natural sciences. On it is built our whole conception of what isto be found on the surface of the earth, beneath it, and in space around it; of the lawsof nature according to which things happen, of the historical processes by which allthings arrived at their present state, and of what may be expected to happen in thefuture. Unless this foundation is sound, unless the reasoning based on it can in somesense be called rational, the whole edifice is a mere fantasy.

Now for a summary of the operation.

It is first shown that neither the proposition that every event must have a cause, northe proposition that any given event is the effect of any given other event, isintuitively or demonstrably evident. We have no power of penetrating into theconcealed essences of things and seeing that one object necessarily implies another. Itis only where we have experience of constant conjunction, as in the case of flame andheat, that we pronounce one event the cause of another; nor do we require anythingelse. It is only because nature reveals more and more regularity the more closely weare able to investigate her that we believe every event to have a cause (Treatise BookI, Part III, Sect. XII). If closer investigation revealed only more and more randomness,we should not believe in the reign of universal law.

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Hume then points out that what the experience of constant conjunction between flameand heat makes us do, is to expect heat when we see flame, in other words infer heatfrom flame. When we are prepared to do this, we say flame causes heat, or isnecessarily attended by it. What we mean then by saying that flame and heat arenecessarily connected is that we are disposed to infer the one from the other; wesimply express the felt constraint of habit compelling us to pass from the perception ofthe flame to the belief in the heat.

Closely interwoven with the progress to this conclusion is an account of the nature of

belief. This, Hume says, consists in that felt force or vivacity of an idea, which nothingbut customary association with a present impression can give.

Finally, developing out of his account of belief, there is a discussion of the differencebetween genuine belief and certain other states of mind which simulate it, the illusionsof poetry, drama and fiction for instance, and of the difference between rational orprobable beliefs, adequately supported by experience, and irrational beliefs basedmerely on education, prejudice or hasty generalisations. We all do, he admits, formsuch irrational beliefs under the influence of various emotional causes; but no one, onreflection in a cool hour, expects such beliefs to be verified or gives settled andhabitual credence to anything but the evidence of experience.

If the reader feels that he is not likely to be entirely satisfied with this as ajustification of factual reasoning, he has my sympathy; but let him wait to hear whatcan be said in Hume's defence when we consider his arguments in detail.

3. Our conviction that every event has a cause (Treatise Book I, PartIII, Sect. III)

Hume gives refutations of various a priori arguments by which philosophers haveprofessed to demonstrate that every event has a cause. He has little difficulty inshowing that they all beg the question. No reformulations can render these refutationsmore convincing, and they seem to me to be open to no objections; 1 therefore referthe reader to Hume's own words; if they do not convince him, I cannot.

At the end of the section Hume concludes that, since the proposition that every eventhas a cause is not intuitively or

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demonstratively certain, our belief in it must arise from observation and experience;but instead of going on to consider how it arises from observation and experience hesays that he prefers to "sink this question in the following, 'Why we conclude that suchparticular causes must necessarily have such particular effects, and why we form aninference from one to another"'. He holds out the promise that "It will, perhaps, befound in the end, that the same answer will serve for both questions".

Now this promise is never explicitly redeemed, and it is not common to find instudents of Hume a clear understanding of how Hume thought we become assured ofthe proposition that every event has a cause. I will therefore cease, for a moment, tofollow Hume step by step in his hunt for necessity, in order to save the reader thetrouble of himself hunting for Hume's answer to this question.

His answer is given, I think, in the section on the probability of causes (Treatise BookI, Part III, Sect. XII), and in the Enquiry, para. 67, in the section on liberty andnecessity. In each of these passages, which are practically identical, Hume isexplaining why "philosophers", by which he means not only philosophers but alsonatural scientists, do not believe in chance, though the vulgar often do. Now todisbelieve in fortuitous events is equivalent. to believing that every event has a cause.Here, then, Hume is telling us how experience and observation give rise to the opinion

that every event has a cause.

The vulgar, according to Hume, only succeed in finding approximate regularities in thecourse of their experience. Certain medicines usually cure certain diseases; sometimesthey fail; that's a bit of bad luck. Most clocks usually keep time; this one has nottoday; bad luck. They are content still to talk of cause and effect, but to suppose thatcauses sometimes fail to produce their due effects, just misfire as it were, "thoughthey meet with no impediment in their operation".

But "philosophers" observe that nature is much more complex than appears at firstsight; it contains elements that elude our everyday observations by their minutenessor remoteness. They therefore see that it is at least possible that the irregularitiesmay proceed not from chance, but from concealed counteracting causes. Thispossibility is converted into certainty

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by the further observation that whenever an exact scrutiny can be made, thecounteracting cause can always be discovered. Consequently, they form a "maxim"that the connexion between all causes and effects is equally necessary, and that itsseeming uncertainty in some instances proceeds from the secret operation of contrarycauses. That, apart from the illustration of the watch with a bit of dust in it, is all hesays.

Now first let us observe that he is here, in effect, arguing for the proposition thatevery event has a cause. It might be thought that he is merely arguing that all causesare certain in their operation, and not merely approximately certain. But if we were toadmit that a cause "misfired", and there was no counteracting cause, no explanationof the misfire, this would be tantamount to admitting that the misfire was anuncaused event. The causal relation is a relation of necessary connexion, as Humesays, and chance is the opposite of necessity.

Secondly, we must admit that if Hume were speaking today, he would be overstatinghis case. It is not true that whenever an exact scrutiny is possible, the cause is found.We have not yet discovered the cause of cancer, though we have as goodopportunities for observing cases of cancer and the conditions under which they occur,as we have of observing any other disease. But we can say that in general our successin discovering regularities, relations of exact and unvarying dependence, is roughlyproportionate to the minuteness and extent of the observations that we can make.This, of itself, would be sufficient to justify the formation of a "maxim" that there arealways exact laws to be found. Where minute investigation fails to disclose them, italways remains possible that agencies still exist which our instruments cannot detect,and the triumphant progress of science in a variety of fields renders it highly probable.

There is, however, one instance in which modern scientists claim to have reason forsupposing that there is a real uncertainty in the nature of things; that is in thebehaviour of individual protons and electrons. According to the "Uncertainty Principle"of Heisenberg, the ultimate laws of physics are merely statistical; there is arandomness in the actual behaviour of individual particles. But the randomness of theirbehaviour is limited by statistical laws in such a way that the

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large collections of particles which form the bodies studied by sciences other thansubatomic physics behave quite regularly. In this instance some scientists say that it isin principle impossible that minuter observations could be made, and meaningless tosuppose that unobservable agencies are at work.

Nevertheless, even if Hume thinks that the empirical evidence that justifies this maximis better than a modern scientist would admit it to be, most modern scientists wouldagree that it is an empirical question whether all events in nature obey regular laws,and, if so, whether the laws are statistical or exact. And I think they would approve ofhis calling it a "maxim".

Thirdly, while agreeing with Hume's account of the way in which the conviction thatevery event has a cause is to be justified, I am doubtful about his account of itsorigin.

The "vulgar" of whom Hume speaks seem to be singularly unsuperstitious. There isconsiderable evidence that even in Hume's time in England, if a peasant's cow diedfrom no discoverable cause, and, in spite of having the best of food and attention, thepeasant did not ascribe the event to chance; he was more likely to ascribe it to theinfluence of the "evil eye" of some malicious neighbour, or the operations of a witch.The possibility of secret agencies being at work is only too apt to present itself to theunphilosophical mind; such minds entertain the darkest suspicions about the hiddensprings and secret principles of nature. The "philosopher's" suspicions differ in thatthey are less dark; he sees that there is no need to suppose that the secret principlesat work are purposive principles similar to those which regulate voluntary humanbehaviour, and discovers good evidence to suppose that they are usually of anotherkind.

It may well be that there is a natural instinctive tendency to suspect the existence ofsome cause of every event; and that this instinct at first lends force to the belief inmagic and spirits, and later, as a result of wider experience, to the belief in theuniversal reign of natural law.

Finally, it is necessary to forestall a possible objection; a reader who has read somephilosophy may object that Hume is here saying (which he is) that the proposition thatevery event has a cause is arrived at by induction, and that this cannot

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be true, because the proposition expresses a necessary presupposition of all induction.

This objection is mistaken. What is presupposed in all induction (the "presumption onwhich all probable reasoning rests" as Hume calls it) is that the unobserved willresemble the observed. This principle is ultimate and cannot be a conclusion ofprobable reasoning, as Hume himself points out (Treatise Book I, Part III, Sect. VI).This principle could lead us to infer from experience either that nature is capriciousand irregular, or that it is regular and obeys laws. If no regularity could be found in

our experience, we should conclude that all nature was irregular; the principle ofprobability would then be of no further use to us; the only prediction it would enableus to make would be that no predictions could be relied upon.

Fortunately, we find a regularity roughly proportionate to the extent and minutenessof the observations which we can make. We therefore infer, according to the principle,that were we able to observe everything adequately we should find everywhere acomplete regularity, and that this regularity of the observed would be found to extendto the unobserved future. Having thus established the regularity of nature we can thenproceed to make further detailed predictions in accordance with the principle ofprobability.

It is therefore true that unless nature were regular we should be unable to make anyparticular predictions by induction; induction would have no use. But it would not beinvalid; on the contrary it would have established that very fact, the capriciousness ofnature, which precluded its further application.

4. Our beliefs in specific causal connexions (Treatise Book I, Part III,Sect. VI)

Let us now turn to Hume's discussion of the second question, the answer to which hehopes will throw light both on the question why a cause is always thought to benecessary for every event, and on the idea of necessary connexion. This question is,why we think certain specific events to be causally connected, and what is the natureof the inference we make from the one to the other, for instance from flame to heat.

Now inference, according to Hume, consists in passing

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from one belief, or set of beliefs, to another. For such a process to take place, theremust be a belief or beliefs which precede, and are independent of, the inference.These original uninferred beliefs, if the inference is to conclude in a belief about amatter of fact, must be either impressions of the senses (or of reflection) or ideas ofmemory. As we have seen, what distinguishes both impressions and ideas of memoryfrom mere ideas, is, according to him, merely their superior force, vivacity, firmness,solidity, or whatever you like to call it. They feel different. And this felt difference isour assent or belief. (Treatise Part III, Sect. V.)

The question of the nature of factual inference is therefore how and under whatconditions is this vivacity extended from an impression or memory to an idea, so thatthat idea becomes a belief, a conclusion of inference. It has been agreed that this onlyhappens where we can "trace a relation of cause and effect". But we do not yet knowwhat this relation is. Its nature, and our means of discovering it, will, Hume hopes,come to light if we consider in what circumstances we actually do make suchinferences, and just what happens in our mind when we do it. For instance, I see aflame and thereupon expect heat. Why? Because the two are necessarily connected.This answer has been found to be insufficiently clear. Therefore, Hume asks, just whatis there about flame, in the absence of which I should not have expected heat when Isaw a flame?

Section VI of Part III of the Treatise opens with a paragraph in which Hume in asuccession of memorable sentences tells what is not the answer to this question. It isnot, he says, that we penetrate into the essence of flame, and see that flame, of itsessential nature, implies heat.

"There is no object which implies the existence of any other, if we considerthese objects in themselves, and never look beyond the ideas which we formof them. Such an inference would amount to knowledge (i.e., demonstrativeor intuitive knowledge like that of mathematics) and would imply theabsolute contradiction and impossibility of conceiving anything different. Butas all distinct ideas are separable, it is evident there can be no impossibilityof that kind. When we pass from a present impression to the idea of anyobject, we might possibly

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have separated the idea from the impression, and have substituted any otheridea in its room".

For instance, I can quite easily conceive or imagine a flame that froze me instead ofburning me. I can write an intelligible fairy story in which a magician brings it aboutthat a certain fire has this effect.

It is not necessary to discuss here whether Hume thought that it was practicallyimpossible to discover the real essences of things, either because of the deficiencies ofour microscopes (as Locke thought) or because of the limitations of our faculties (asKant thought), or whether he thought that it was logically impossible because all talkof real essences was meaningless. His point is simply that we do not in fact need tomake any penetration into the real essences of things when we discover causalconnexions. The discovery is not derived from any such penetration. Without botheringto try to penetrate into the essence of flame, perfectly unscientific people consider it acause of heat and expect it to burn them. They do it, as Hume says, "without furtherceremony". They do not consult physicists or metaphysicians. And what makes themdo it, Hume asks? It is experience. And what form does the experience take thatmakes them do it? We all know the answer to this one too. It is the experience of aconstant conjunction between flame and heat in the past that makes us call the onecause and other effect, without any further ceremony.

We must note here that Hume goes a little further than saying it is past experience ofthe constant conjunction; he says it is memory of the conjunctions in the past. Thisdoes not seem to be always true, as he recognises later in the same chapter, when hespeaks of the automatic association between a word and the idea it signifies. Our pastexperiences often determine our present expectations even when we do not, andperhaps cannot, recall the particular past experiences which are relevant.

This phenomenon is particularly noticeable in cases where the experiences of pastconjunctions are many and complex, but all contribute to determine a single decision.It is from a wide range of past experience of warfare, and possibly of other things,that the brilliant commander knows, in the heat of battle, the exact moment to launchthe decisive cavalry

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charge; if you asked him to recite those past experiences, he very probably could notdo so. We have a name, a rather misleading name, for the capacity to do this sort ofthing successfully. We call it "intuition".

Hume has thus discovered another feature of a typical case of cause and effect, besidethe temporal and spatial relations of the two events. It is the constancy of these tworelationships in cases of similar events in the past. And although it is this new featurewhich, in fact, makes all the difference and is the sufficient condition of our callingthem cause and effect, he has not yet solved his problem.

He wants to find the origin of that idea of necessary connexion, which serves as thebasis of inferences. The constant conjunction cannot by itself be the origin of this idea.If one case of flame followed by heat cannot give rise to an idea of necessaryconnexion, then how can seven cases of the same thing do it? We are only"multiplying, not enlarging the objects of our mind". But "It would be folly to despairtoo soon".

He decides, therefore, to continue the examination of the nature of that inference,which we do in fact make, whenever we have experience of constant conjunction; inthis way he hopes to throw further light on the idea of that necessary connexionwhich we regard as the foundation of such an inference; and, prophetically, he says"Perhaps it will appear in the end, that the necessary connexion depends on theinference, instead of the inference's depending on the necessary connexion". Inphilosophy, it is frequently found that if the positions of the cart and the horse arereversed, the equipage goes all the better.

Now an inference of the kind in question consists at least in what Hume calls a"transition" from an impression or memory of one object to the idea of another whichwe call its cause or effect. I see a flame and pass to the idea of heat; and we haveseen that it is experience of constant conjunction that makes me do so. Now Humeasks, does that experience produce that transition by means of any chain ofreasoning? We have already seen that reason can discover no essential connexion, nodirect logical implication between flame and heat. He now

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asks, can reason find an indirect logical connexion, in which the experience of pastconjunctions serves as a link?

He considers and refutes two forms which this indirect reasoning might be supposedto take; and challenges anyone to produce any other suggestions ("I desire that thisreasoning may be produced").

The first form which he suggests that the reasoning might take is as follows:

Unobserved instances must resemble observed instances.

Observed instances of flame have been accompanied by heat.

Unobserved instances of flame will also be accompanied by heat.

Of this reasoning, Hume asks how we arrive at the first premiss. It is not an analyticproposition, whose contradictory is inconceivable. A change in the course of nature isperfectly conceivable. On the contrary it states a matter of fact about the universewhich might conceivably not have been the case. It can, therefore, only beestablished, if at all, by probable reasoning from experience. But this is exactly thesort of reasoning for which it is always required, according to the present suggestion,as a first premiss; it cannot, therefore, be established by probable reasoning without aglaring Petitio principii. Hume puts this epigrammatically, but not very accurately, bysaying, "The same principle cannot be both the cause and the effect of another".

Hume does not deny that the uniformity of nature is the "presumption" on which allprobable reasoning is founded. His point is that it is merely a presumption, whichcannot be proved. He also points out later (Section VIII) that it is usually merely atacit presumption, not an explicit premiss. We do, as a matter of fact, make it, andwhen our inferences proceed in accordance with it we call them "reasonable", in thesense of probable, and trust them. To distrust them, although we saw them to bemade in accordance with this presumption, because we could not prove the truth ofthe presumption, would be a form of scepticism which Hume challenges anyone to putinto practice.

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The second form which it might be suggested the reasoning takes, is more or less thatsuggested by Locke. It is as follows:

The constant conjunction of heat with flame implies a power in flame toproduce heat.

If flame has a power to produce heat, it must always produce it.

The suggestion here is that, although we cannot, as Locke had admitted, "penetrate"into the real essences of things and observe their powers, yet from the constantconjunction of appearances we can infer something about those real essences, i.e.,their powers of producing other things known to us by their characteristicappearances. It is the inferred power of whatever is the real nature of flame toproduce whatever may be the real nature of what we call heat, that is supposed toform the basis of the inference from flame to heat.

Hume in answer says that he will refrain from pointing out that the ideas of "power"and "production" are really identical with that of causation, for the source of which weare searching. He grants, for the sake of argument, that the conjunction of theappearances we call heat with the appearances we call flame in certain observedcases, proves that in those cases, at those times, the real natures behind theappearances of flame had a power to produce the real natures behind the appearancesof heat. But, he asks, how can you tell that behind a new appearance of flame lies asimilar real nature with a similar power? And how can you tell that the real naturebehind any given appearance of flame will continue to possess such a power onemoment after you have ceased to observe the accompanying appearance of heat?

Without an appeal to the presumption of the uniformity of nature, which he hasalready shown to be non-rational, we "can never prove, that the same power mustcontinue in the same object or collection of sensible qualities; much less that a likepower is always conjoined with like sensible qualities".

This argument of Hume's seems to me to be of the greatest importance; it couldperfectly well be restated to meet an opponent who thought that we really couldperceive powers in real things, not merely infer them from sensible appearances; forinstance Professor Stout. 1

____________________1"Mind and Matter", Book I, Chapter II.

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Even if we can perceive or feel in the bow we bend a power or active tendency tostraighten itself and propel the arrow, how do we know that other bows of similarmaterial will have similar powers, or that this bow will continue to possess this powerafter we have ceased to feel it? The idea of "power" or "active tendency" is not theessential element in our idea of a cause; it is not the same as that idea of generalnecessary connexion which we need to justify causal inferences. What we need toknow is that bows as such will straighten, not merely that this bow is now felt orinferred to be exerting a power of pulling at our hand.

Hume concludes that the experience of constant conjunction does not provide a logicallink which enables us to make causal inferences by demonstrative reasoning. Yet it iswhat somehow enables us to make such inferences. Hume says that the only possibleexplanation is that it facilitates the transition from the impression or memory to theidea by setting up an association in the imagination.

Fancy, Hume admits, is free as the wind; "Thought . . . may leap from the heavens tothe earth, from one end of the creation to the other, without any certain method ororder". Alternately, one "may fix his attention during some time on any one objectwithout looking further". But sometimes a discoverable principle is at work guiding thesequence of our ideas; this principle is association; and the relations betweenimpressions which give rise to a tendency to association between their correspondingideas are resemblance, contiguity in time or place, and causation.

There is thus no difficulty in seeing how repeated contiguity of similar impressionsgives rise to a strong associative link between the corresponding ideas, and atendency to pass from the one to the other. The flame I see revives the ideas of pastflames which resembled it; these were all spatially and temporally contiguous withheat, and their ideas, therefore, introduce the idea of heat. Had half of them beenattended by cold instead, the idea of cold would also have been introduced, and Ishould not have known what to expect. As it is, the idea of heat holds the field. Itsoon happens that the mediating ideas of the past instances of flame drop out of themental process, and the impression of a flame evokes the idea of heat

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immediately. The two ideas are then, in Hume's terminology, associated by therelation of cause and effect. It is this automatic association which enables us to"reason" on the relation of cause and effect.

Now the cat is really out of the bag, or to continue Hume's hunting metaphor, thequarry is well started and driven into the open. We can see what species of animal itis, and Hume could well have told us; but he prefers first to make very sure ofcatching it. Nevertheless, we will anticipate the final kill and post-mortemexamination.

The necessary connexion is that relation between a cause and its effect which enablesus to infer the one from the other, and makes us feel justified in doing so.

Hume has described the conditions under which we make such inferences and feeljustified in doing so; when the constant conjunction of like objects in the past hasmade us associate the idea of the one with that of the other. These conditions are thefoundation of the inference, therefore they must be the necessary connexion.

Hume puts the argument with admirable conciseness in the section on NecessaryConnexion ( Treatise, p. 163). "The necessary connexion betwixt causes and effects isthe foundation of our inference from one to the other. The foundation of our inferenceis the transition arising from the accustomed union. These, therefore, are the same".Necessity is in the mind of the inferrer, just as beauty is in the eye of the beholderand virtue in the mind of the approver, as Hume later maintained.

But Hume is not yet quite ready to make this final revelation. He has not yetcompleted his account of inference; for inference is a transition not merely from oneidea to another, but from one belief to another, and so far he has only thrown outsuggestions as to the nature of belief, suggestions which require further elaboration.

He wants to distinguish belief from similar but different states of mind; and, since hehas maintained that the causal relation is the sole foundation of all factual reasoning,he wants to distinguish rational beliefs from irrational beliefs, and show that theformer are identical with beliefs inferred in accordance with an association due toconstant conjunction in past experience. Finally, to bring the whole argument in linewith his

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doctrine of impressions and ideas, he wants to show that belief and inference are amatter of feeling, and make clear just what is that feeling which we get when we inferan "effect" from its "cause", and which is the impression from which the idea ofnecessary connexion is derived.

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CHAPTER VBELIEF1. The Nature and Causes of Belief (Treatise Book I, Part III,Sects. VII, VIII, X, and Appendix; Enquiry, paras. 39-45)

Hume points out that he is here treating a subject of whose importance and difficultyprevious philosophers had been unaware, and on which they had thrown no light; hesays that he finds it very difficult, and that even when he thinks he understands it, hehas the greatest difficulty in finding terms to express his meaning. ( Treatise, p. 99.)

Recollection of these statements should temper our criticisms of his views; it has notalways tempered the observations of his critics. Too often a critic just takes his formaldefinition of a belief as a lively idea associated with a present impression and pointsout that it does not square with the facts. It is surely fairer to consider all that hesays on the subject, to ponder on its implications, to consider the relations of thoseimplications to his views on other topics, for instance on abstract ideas, and see if that"understanding" of the question which he found it so difficult to express was not reallysomething like the truth.

Hume's first concern in Section VII is to point out how the nature of the problem hadbeen hitherto concealed by the defective traditional account of judgement as "theseparating or uniting of different ideas" (footnote, p. 98 ).

This account, he holds, is false. When another person believes a proposition which Ido not believe, e.g., "Cæsar died in his bed", we both unite the same ideas, and formthe same conception or complex idea of Cæsar dying in his bed. But he believes it, orif you please, judges that it was so; I do not. The uniting of ideas produces aconception, common both to him who believes and to him who does not (p. 97 ).

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Moreover, there are judgements which contain only a single idea, e.g., "God exists"(footnote, p. 98 ). Here the only idea concerned is that of God. This judgement thencannot consist of a union of different ideas. But you may say that this judgementconsists in uniting the idea of existence to that of God. That would be an error;existence is not a distinct idea, which we can unite with or separate from any otheridea at our pleasure. Whether we form the idea of a mermaid or of God, we form theidea of something, of a being with certain attributes; if we seek to enlarge ourconception by adding the idea of existence, we achieve nothing; the idea remains justwhat it was before; it was always the idea of a being of a certain sort.

The passage from mere conception to belief cannot therefore consist, as some havesupposed, in the addition of the idea of existence to the idea we had already formed;for, first, the idea already formed was, as we have said, the idea of a being, andsecondly, if we did add another idea to the idea already formed, we should be alteringour conception, and what we now believe would be something different from what wepreviously conceived. But ex hypothesi, that is not the case; what we are considering

is the difference between conceiving something and believing that same thing, or moreaccurately between entertaining a proposition and believing that same imposition (pp.96 - 97 ).

Hume concludes that since the difference between mere conception and belief doesnot consist in a difference in what is conceived, it must consist in a difference in ourmanner of conceiving of it (p. 96 ).

There can I think be no doubt that Hume had his eye on the famous Ontological Proofof the existence of God 1 in this passage. That is why he takes the proposition thatGod exists as his instance on p. 96 .

His contention that the idea of existence is not a distinct idea different from the ideaof any object, is an anticipation of Kant's statement that "existence is not a predicate",on which his refutation of the ontological argument is founded. Hume's observations,brief and allusive as they are, seem to me to

____________________1This proof runs as follows: God is by definition perfect; non-existenceis animperfection. Therefore God exists.

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explain more clearly than Kant does, just why "existence is not a predicate".

He puts the matter most succinctly in Treatise Book I, Part II, Sect. VI. "To reflect onanything simply, and to reflect on it as existent, are nothing different from each other.. . . Whatever we conceive, we conceive to be existent. Any idea we please to form isthe idea of a being; and the idea of a being is any idea we please to form". It is,therefore, logically necessary, when we conceive of anything, to conceive it asexisting. But this is just what the defenders of the ontological argument said was apeculiarity of the conception of God. "I cannot conceive God unless as existing", saysDescartes.

To put it another way, it is indeed inconceivable that there should be a God who doesnot exist, just as it is inconceivable that there should be a table or a mermaid whichdoes not exist. But that does not imply that it is inconceivable that there should be noGod.

Why does Hume not explicitly mention the ontological argument, either in the sectionon the idea of existence, or in the section on belief? I can only suggest, first, that heregarded it as merely one of the many misguided attempts of philosophers todemonstrate matters of fact, the impossibility of which he claims to show in generalwhere he treats of knowledge and probability, and secondly, that he prefers to leavethe ontologists to infer from his words the nature of the special fallacy they havecommitted, by way of an ironical tribute to the intelligence which he conceives, butdoes not believe, them to possess.

Let us return to Hume's account of belief.

The difference between mere conception and belief lies not in any difference in the

ideas conceived but in the manner in which we conceive them. Provided we interpretthe phrase "manner in which we conceive them" and the word "idea" in the widestpossible way, and do not follow Hume in his attempt to specify this manner further,we can scarcely but agree with him so far. Nor could it easily be denied that thismanner is something that can be "felt", an impression of reflection.

It is Hume's further specification of the manner of conception that has arousedcriticism. Belief, he says, consists in the "vivacity" of the idea conceived. Looking atthe question from his own psychological point of view (p. 98) he can come

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to no other conclusion. An idea is for him an image; "Our ideas are copied from ourimpressions"; what an idea represents is the combination of impressions which itresembles. The difference between an idea conceived and an idea believed must notalter what is represented by the idea. The only conceivable intrinsic difference that willnot alter it is a difference in what he calls "vivacity"; just as the only difference youcan make in a shade of colour, without altering its hue, is to make it brighter or lessbright.

This analogy of the shade of colour is, I think, unfortunate. It suggests that what hemeans by the vivacity of an idea believed is brightness of colour and distinctness ofoutline. This is not quite consistent with what he says on the next page, where hetries, by means of a variety of synonymous terms, to make clearer what he means.The idea believed, he there says, feels different from the mere conception, and thisdifference of feeling he calls "its superior force, or vivacity, or solidity, or firmness, orsteadiness". He also seeks to identify the quality he refers to by its effects; it is whatmakes "realities more present to us then fictions, causes them to weigh more in ourthought, and gives them a superior influence on the passions and imagination".

All this suggests something other than mere brightness of a picture. The term "force"already suggests power to influence the workings of our mind in the ways heafterwards mentions; "firmness" and "steadiness" suggests rather fixity, freedom fromvariation, than brightness and distinctness of outline. In the end he is content to saythat it is something familiar, whose "true and proper name is belief, which is a termthat everybody sufficiently understands in common life", something for which there isno other precise term.

Two more points must be noted to complete our account of Hume's description of thepeculiar quality of the believed idea.

First, though a feeling, it is not a feeling distinct from the idea but accompanying it asdesire accompanies the idea of something pleasant.

Second, the feeling though familiar and lacking any other name, is not quite unique.Both these points are made in the Appendix to the Treatise.

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With regard to the first, he says that no such distinct impression is discoverable to

introspection; that there is no need to assume it in order to explain what we do find inintrospection, i.e., firmness and steadiness; and that if there were such a thing itscauses would be inexplicable.

With regard to the second, he says that if it were unique, we must despair ofexplaining its causes by analogy with any other phenomenon of the human mind.Fortunately, he finds that it is the same quality, in a rather lower degree, as thatwhich characterises an impression and constitutes our assent to its reality; he is thusable to explain how ideas become enlivened; the impressions with which they areassociated impart to them a share of their vivacity.

Let us now turn to the criticisms usually brought against Hume's contention.

These may be summed up as follows: If belief consists in a feeling of vivacity, thendifferences in strength of belief should consist in differences of strength of this feeling.But (1) we seem to have little or no strength of feeling about some of the propositionsof whose truth we are most firmly persuaded, and (2) we often conceive in the liveliestpossible manner situations in whose reality we do not believe.

As instances of (1) propositions such as 2+2=4, which Hume would call "relations ofideas", are often taken. With regard to such propositions Hume forestalls the criticismon p. 97, though perhaps he does not express his view in the best possible way. Hesays that it is easy to discover what is the difference between believing anddisbelieving a proposition, inthe case of "propositions that are proved by intuition ordemonstration". "In that case the person who assents not only conceives the ideasaccording to the proposition, 1 but is necessarily determined to conceive them in thatparticular manner"; because, in short, the contradictory of the proposition isinconceivable, being a self-contradiction. The trouble arises in the case of factualpropositions, where both the proposition and its contradictory are not only conceivablebut conceived; what then is the difference between the proposition which we believeand its opposite which we do not?

____________________1By proposition Hume here means "sentence".

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Now we can either interpret Hume as meaning that when we say we believe ademonstrable proposition, we mean something different by "belief" from that which wemean when we say that we believe a factual proposition; in the first case we mean"necessarily determined" conception, in the second case vivacious conception; or wecan interpret Hume as meaning that our assent to a demonstrable proposition is not acase of belief but of knowledge. This would be in keeping with his account ofknowledge in Part III, Section I of the Treatise. In either case the objection isforestalled. The kind of belief he defines as "vivacity" is the assurance we repose in afactual proposition after considering both it and its contradictory. His definition is notmeant to cover assent to propositions expressing relations of ideas, such as 2+2=4.

But what if the objector cites some very well-established empirical belief, such as thatthe earth goes round the sun? Here surely is a case where the opposite of theproposition is conceivable, but where the strength of our belief is altogether out of

proportion to the strength of any feelings that attach themselves to the propositionbelieved. On the contrary, it is just because we are so firmly persuaded of the truth ofthe proposition, because we regard the question as so definitely settled, that we haveno strong feelings about it. We do not, as has been pointed out, "sweat withconviction" on such matters. In reply to this objection I would draw a distinction; a"well-established" empirical belief may mean one for which there is in my experiencevery good evidence, including testimony perhaps, or it may mean one which has beenlong and firmly established in my mind. A belief may be very firmly established in mymind, even if I have none or little evidence to support it; i.e., it may be an inveterateprejudice; similarly, a proposition may have long been well-supported by myexperience without having ever been entertained or assented to by me before. Or, ofcourse, a belief may be well-established in both senses.

Now, when I first entertain and assent to a proposition for which my experienceprovides very strong evidence--for instance, when in a book by some gifted observerof human nature I read a brilliant generalisation, new to me, but exactly

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tallying with my own experience--then the manner in which I conceive this propositionis surely just what Hume describes. The evidence of my experience lends strength tomy belief, it enlivens, enforces, bestows a certain feeling upon the idea; this feeling, itis not unplausible to say, is my emphatic assent to the proposition. And it is thedifference between assenting to a proposition and just entertaining it which Hume isattempting to describe.

But as time goes on the generalisation becomes familiar; I become accustomed toassenting to the proposition, and to acting in the light of it, every time circumstancessuggest it. It ceases to be new and exciting; and all violence and vigour of assent arelost to it. In what now does the "strength of my belief" consist? It consists plainly inthe strength, i.e., the regularity of operation, of a habit. Though my assent may nowbe quite languid, you can be pretty sure I shall not deny the proposition, except inorder to deceive or provoke, and that I shall not act in any manner that would notserve my purposes if it were true. Moreover, my assent, though languid, will comewith that felt familiar facility, that smooth click, which only habit gives.

Now I cannot honestly say for Hume that he clearly recognised that what is most oftenmeant by a belief is not a particular act of assent, but a disposition or habit of mind.But it is noteworthy that the predicates firmness and steadiness, by which hecharacterises an idea assented to, are more naturally applicable to a habit than anindividual representation.

We can now sum up Hume's account of assent, in order better to meet the secondbarrel of the stock objection, viz., that we often conceive an idea very vivaciouslywithout believing it. According to Hume, whether we assent to an analytic propositionas a matter of knowledge, or whether we assent to a synthetic proposition as a matterof belief, the idea must be steadied and fixed to the exclusion of incompatiblealternatives. In the case of an analytic proposition this is ensured by theinconceivability of all incompatible alternatives. In the case of a synthetic proposition itis effected by the regularity of past experience. The idea believed represents what has

always happened in situations like the present one. All incompatible ideas representwhat has only sometimes or never happened in

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such situations; there is nothing to fix them in the mind to the exclusion of rival ideas.

The emphasis in this account is on the steadiness rather than the vividness of the ideabelieved. Those who urge the objection that we often conceive an idea very vivaciouslywithout believing it miss this point. Hume's answer to them is that the sort of ideasthey mean are vivified indeed by some associated impression, but, not being steadiedin the way we have described, are not genuine beliefs.

Hume discusses these pseudo-beliefs at length in Sect. IX "Of the effects of otherrelations and other habits". We must now consider what he says of them.

2. States of mind which simulate belief (Treatise Book I, Part III,Sect. IX)

Hume, as we have seen, admits three relations which originally associate ideas in theimagination; resemblance, contiguity and causation. Any idea evoked by a presentimpression with which it is associated in any of these ways is enlivened by theassociation. This he asserts to be an empirical fact. Belief is defined as a lively ideaassociated with a present impression. Presumably, therefore, any association with apresent impression converts an idea into a belief. Far from it; it is a fundamental tenetof Hume's that only the causal relationship gives rise to genuine belief.

Hume now faces this difficulty. His answer is, in effect, to distinguish two things.During the course of a day, many ideas will be suggested to me in a great variety ofways; pictures will suggest the ideas of scenes and persons resembling them, hills willsuggest the ideas of vales that lie beyond them; the statements of my fellow men willsuggest to me all manner of ideas. Many of these ideas will become enlivened by theirassociation with present impressions and command my fleeting and momentaryassent. This is one class of ideas. But besides this I have another system of ideas,which, by their settled order and their regular connexion with the impressions of senseand memory, command my habitual assent, and which I dignify by the term"realities".

These latter ideas, for instance, to take Hume's example, his idea of Rome, are notparticular psychological occurrences,

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each with a date. They are classes of such occurrences, whose members occuraccording to the settled habits of the mind and are enlivened by customary connexionwith impressions of memory. It was a relatively permanent fact about Mr. Hume thathe was disposed to assent to certain conceptions of the history and geography ofRome. "All this", he says, "and everything else which I believe are nothing but ideas,though by their force and settled order, arising from custom and the relation of cause

and effect, they distinguish themselves from the other ideas, which are merely theoffspring of the imagination".

I would like to suggest as precisely as I can what I think Hume means in the foregoingsomewhat loosely worded passage.

The ideas called realities are marked by "force and settled order". This means thatthey are assented to with some promptness and vigour ("force") as a matter of habit("settled") provided they occur in a certain pattern of spatio-temporal relations("order"); e.g., I habitually assent to a certain representation of the city of Rome,which represents it on the banks of the Tiber and south of the Alps. A similarrepresentation of the city, which, however, placed it north of the Alps, would notcommand my assent in the same way. Such beliefs then are habitual beliefs, habits ofassent, even if they are (as in this case) particular as opposed to general beliefs.

But such habitual particular beliefs can only arise as the result of habits of a moregeneral kind. It is because experience has accustomed me to trust in the statementsof historians, the fidelity of copyists, the reliability of cartographers, etc., that I formthis particular belief. These general habits can only be produced by regularconjunctions in experience ( Hume here maintains), and only the general habits cangenerate the particular habits of assent which are particular beliefs, whose objects wecall realities, such as the city of Rome. This is what is meant by "the force and settledorder arising from custom and the relation of cause and effect".

This view is not incompatible with the view that genuine belief has a special feelabout. If genuine beliefs are habits of assent, each act of assent in accordance withsuch a habit will have about it the peculiar smooth facility which characterises allhabitual acts. It becomes increasingly clear as Hume's

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argument goes on that it is the "firmness" and "steadiness", characteristic of habitualassent, rather than the brightness of the image or the degree of felt conviction, whichis the essential characteristic of a genuine belief, and which only constant conjunctionin experience can produce.

Turning to the relations of resemblance and contiguity, he points out that these mayoperate in two ways.

First, an impression, for instance the sight of a portrait of my friend, or of the lastmilestone on the road home, may evoke and enliven the ideas of my friend, or of myhome. In these cases the relationship does heighten my belief by adding to thevivacity of the idea; but my friend, the subject of the picture, and my home situatednear the milestone, are in these cases items in my system of realities; they arealready believed in on other grounds, of memory and inference. As Hume points out,unless I already believed that the picture was a portrait of my friend, it would notenliven my idea of him at all.

Secondly, a picture may suggest a quite new idea of something like it, or the placewhere my friend used to live may suggest the idea of him coming round the nextcorner to meet me. We may give a momentary assent to these suggestions; but we

cannot incorporate them in our system of habitual beliefs; they lack the necessarycredentials. For the same impression may by the same relation evoke another andincompatible suggestion at any moment. The picture suggests the idea of an historicalevent one moment, of an event on the stage the next. The place suggests my frienddoing one thing one moment, something different the next. "The mind foresees andanticipates the change; and even from the first instant feels the looseness of itsactions, and the weak hold it has of its object".

These other relations can then, by themselves, only produce a sort of flickeringshortlived vivification of an idea, quite different from the steadiness and firmnesswhich mark an idea associated by custom with a present impression. When added tothe relation of cause and effect they reinforce belief, as Hume shows by variousexamples. But they cannot by themselves produce it; for they cannot give to the ideathat firmness and steadiness which only custom can give.

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This then, as we have already seen, is Hume's answer to the second barrel of thestock objection. Ideas may, indeed, be in a way enlivened by a great variety ofpsychological processes. But none of these, except constant conjunction in experienceof similar impressions, gives to the idea enlivened the feeling of firmness, of enjoyinga connexion with the enlivening impression denied to other and incompatible ideas.This lack of firmness prevents such quasi-beliefs from having, at least in normalminds, the same influence on our passions and our actions.

This feeling of firmness and steadiness, the opposite of "looseness", is, I think,according to Hume, the very same with that felt "determination of the mind" which isthe impression from which the idea of necessary connexion is derived. And it isnothing but the consciousness of custom at work. Habitual actions, whether mental orphysical, have a firm inevitable feel about them; we feel tied to them as we do them.The existence of habit, both in operation and in readiness is, according to Hume, felt.(Compare Treatise, Book I, Part I, Sect. VII, p. 28).

But there is another difficulty which Hume foresees. A belief, he says, is an ideaenlivened by association with a present impression, and steadied by the operation of acustom founded on constant conjunction. But why must it be constant conjunction ofpast impressions? Is it true that only the causal relation, only constant conjunctions inexperience can produce belief? No; Hume sees that something else both should intheory be able to produce it, and in fact does; education. We believe what we haverepeatedly been told. Settled and determinate habits of association can be producedby constant conjunctions between the ideas suggested by the discourse of others, justas well as by constant conjunctions between impressions in experience.

Of ordinary people Hume thinks it is true that more than half their beliefs areproduced by education. Philosophers, however, he says, do not "recognise" education(p. 118). Beliefs resulting purely from education, unsupported by experiencecorroborating either the propositions believed or the reliability of the educators, arenot epistemologically respectable.

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The reasons Hume gives to explain why philosophers do not "recognise" education are(a) that "Education is an artificial and not a natural cause", and (b) that "its maximsare frequently contrary to reason and even to themselves in different times andplaces". By reason (a) he means that the associations of ideas derived from educationdepend on the wishes and motives of educators, and human wishes have no necessaryconnexion with what actually occurs. By reason (b) he means that the maxims ofeducators are frequently selfcontradictory, and frequently contrary to "reason" in thesense of being either logically absurd, or contrary to experience.

It is easy to see how reflection on the arbitrary nature and self-contradictoriness ofeducators' maxims would give rise to just that feeling of "looseness" and unsteadinesswhich Hume says is the opposite of belief. But the observation that educators' maximsare frequently contradicted by experience raises the difficult question why we preferexperience, which, after all, frequently suggests mutually contradictory conclusions, tothe authority of educators, prophets, astrologers and the like. This question will beconsidered later. (Ch. VI, 3.)

It is time to give a final estimate of Hume's account of belief. It has, I think, twofaults.

The first is that Hume appears to think that he is trying to describe a single thing; acertain single, simple feeling which believed ideas have, of which such terms as"force", "vivacity", "steadiness", "firmness", etc., are alternative descriptions. I wouldsuggest that what he is trying to describe is really a class of complex states of affairs.It is a mark of belief that the idea believed is vividly imagined and holds ourinvoluntary attention, it is a mark of belief that the idea believed is steady andhabitual; it is a mark of belief that the steady conception of the idea comes with theclick of custom in suitable conditions; it is a mark of belief that we feel and act aswould be appropriate if the idea were true. Hume describes these marks very well. Butno one of them (except possibly the last, since it may be held to include all theothers) is by itself a necessary or sufficient criterion of genuine belief; rather asufficient number of the marks must be present in a sufficient degree.

Much the same problem would arise if we tried to define "health". That the bodilyorgans are in a normal physiological

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condition, that the person "feels well", that he can and does perform normal activitiessuccessfully, all these are marks of health. No one of them is health, nor is health amysterious something distinct from the marks of it.

Hume's contention with regard to cause and effect amounts to this, that only constantconjunctions in experience can produce certain of the marks of belief, steadiness,consistency, habit-feeling, etc., without a certain degree of at least some of whichthere is no belief.

The second fault is that Hume seems to attach too much weight to the association ofthe idea believed with a present impression of the senses or of memory. My belief that

there is bacon and eggs for breakfast because I smell them may, indeed, be plausiblydefined as a lively idea associated with a present impression. But my belief that silveris more fusible than lead, or that if Hitler had invaded England in 1940 he would haveconquered it, may well rest on past impressions which I do not now actually recall. Imay even be unable to recall the evidence on which a belief rests; but that does notmake me abandon it.

This fault is not very important, as Hume's main position stands, provided it is truethat the idea believed is always associated in the ways he describes with someimpressions, whether past or present, remembered or forgotten.

F

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CHAPTER VIPROBABILITY 1I. The probability of chances and the probability of causes (TreatiseBook I, Part III, Sects. XI and XII)

HUME distinguishes two main senses in which a proposition may be called probable.

(1) The sense in which he used the word "probability" as opposed to "knowledge" atthe beginning of Part III of the Treatise, following Locke. In this sense it is probablethat the rays of light passed through a convex lens will converge; they always havehitherto. We merely refuse to call it a certainty because no logical demonstration ispossible; the supposition that they will diverge is not self-contradictory. This isdefinitely a philosopher's use of the term. "Probable" reasoning, by this way ofspeaking, is all reasoning that depends on "the presumption that the unobserved willresemble the observed". It is opposed to demonstrative reasoning which rests on theprinciple that a proposition whose contradictory is selfcontradictory is true.

(2) The sense in which we should say that it is probable that I shall recover frominfluenza, or that I shall not draw a Queen from a complete pack of cards, turned facedownwards, at the first attempt. In this sense "probability" is still opposed to"certainty"; but we deny certainty for a different sort of reason; our reason is not theabsence of demonstration, but the presence of some grounds for expecting theproposition to prove false, grounds of the same kind as those which lead us to expectit to be true, but less weighty. Most people similar to

____________________1For a more detailed exposition of the kind of view of probability recommended inthis chapter, and for a defence of it against certain abstruse mathematicalobjections, the reader is referred to " Mind", July, 1940, art. "On probability" by G.

H. von Wright.

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me have recovered from influenza, a few have died. I am going to pick one of thecards on the table; 48 of those cards are not Queens; but 4 are.

Now these two cases, the influenza and the cards, differ in kind; the first Hume wouldcall a case of the probability of causes, the second a case of the probability ofchances.

We may put the difference in this way. In both cases probable reasoning in sense (1),i.e., inference from past observations, plays a part. But it plays a different part ineach. In the case of the influenza, past observation gives the proportion of recoveriesto deaths, say, 50 to 1, which I somehow transfer to the present instance, and saythe probability of my recovery is 50 to 1. In the second case, past observations giveme the assurance that the cards do not change the devices on their faces while laid onthe table, or, if I have not inspected the pack, that packs of playing cards normallycontain only four Queens, and that the person who assures me that this is a normalpack usually tells the truth. The proportion of 48 to 4 which determines the numericalprobability of the proposition is not a proportion of past observations; it is a proportionof present existences, either inferred from past observations or known from presentobservations.

The difference can also be seen by reflecting that in the former case, if all pastinfluenza patients had recovered, it would still be logically possible that I should die;but if there were no Queens in the pack it would be logically impossible that I shouldpick one out.

Hume considers the probability of chances first, because he thinks that its naturethrows light on the probability of causes, which is a more important question, andplainly more germane to the general issue he is dealing with. What he says about itcontains two elements, an epistemological, and a psychological.

His epistemological contentions concerning the probability of chances, are, as far asthey go, in my opinion, true. His psychological contentions are more dubious, andcontain difficulties for his general theory.

His epistemological contentions are as follows:

(1) By chance is meant the negation of a cause. Chance, he also says, is nothing real.Therefore, by the former statement, he does not mean that there really are uncausedevents; but

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that when a persons says "it is a matter of chance whether the die falls on this side orone of the other sides", he means "no ascertainable causes determine which side itshall fall on". There are, of course, Hume thinks, concealed causes at work, though thevulgar do not always suspect it; they think "chances" and "luck" are real things in the

world.

(2) Since a chance is a mere absence of a known cause, all chances are "equal". Noone chance can of itself be "better" than another. If there is no ascertainable cause atwork to make the die fall on side x rather than side y, the chances are equal. Thechance of x can only of itself be superior to the chance of y, if the past behaviour ofthe die, or similar objects, suggests that it more often falls that way up; but in thatcase we have evidence of a cause at work, and the superior probability is a case of theprobability of causes.

(3) A chance can only be more probable as a chance, if it is really a number ofchances combined together. One composite chance is superior to another compositechance if it is composed of a greater number of simple chances.

(4) The relative magnitudes of composite chances can only be calculated within agiven "family" of chances of a finite number. For instance, it must first be establishedthat the die has six sides, that four of the sides are marked with a cross and two witha circle, that it will lie on one of them, that their number and marking will not bealtered in the fall, etc. We can then say that it is 2 to 1 on a cross coming uppermost.

Having established these propositions (Treatise pp. 127-8), Hume then asks why weare more inclined to believe that a cross will come uppermost than that a circle will.

He points out that no "comparison of mere ideas", i.e., no demonstrative argument,can lead us to this conclusion. There is no logical necessity that the event should fallon that side where there is a superior number of chances; on the contrary we know acircle may perfectly well turn up.

But is it perhaps a logical necessity that in the circumstances described it is morelikely or probable that a cross will turn up? We feel it is; but what do we mean hereby likelihood? There is nothing we can mean except that the number of chances of across is greater than the number of chances of a circle. But this is not a deductionfrom the given facts about the die, its

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number of sides and its marking. It is simply a general way of describing them. In thissense of likelihood, it is a mere tautology to say that if there are six sides, fourmarked with a cross and two with a circle, and the die will fall on one of them, thenthe number of chances of a cross is greater than the number of chances of a circle,and that if this is so, then a cross is more likely that a circle. These are all simplydifferent ways of describing the data. The question is how these data influence ourexpectations. Not, so far as Hume can see, by means of any chain of reasoning;therefore, he presumes, by a psychological process. And he then proceeds to describewhat he thinks this psychological process is, with all the loving care of a philosopherfor one of his pet theoretical offspring.

The question is how the idea (i.e., image) of a side marked with a cross acquiresgreater force and vivacity than that of a side marked with a circle. And he has nodifficulty in answering this question. The image of the side with a cross is really afusion of four separate and similar images, each with an equal amount of vivacity of

its own, and its vivacity is the sum of the vivacities of those four images; the image ofthe side with a circle is a fusion of only two similar images, each with the sameamount of vivacity. The more vivacious fused image overpowers, but does not destroythe less vivacious fused image; this state of double expectation, expecting two events,but one more strongly than the other, is probable expectation.

It is at this point that I begin to suspect that I see why Hume took as his instance adie such as he described, rather than one of the normal type, with sides marked from1 to 6. The normal die could not generate this simple psychological process of image-fusion. The four images of the sides marked respectively with 1, 2, 3 and 4 dots couldnot fuse into a single image. I shall consider later, in connexion with the probability ofcauses, what Hume should have said in order to avoid this difficulty.

Having followed Hume into his dubious psychological explanation, let us consider thisconundrum further from an epistemological point of view, and see if we can suggestsome more reassuring account of this species of reasoning.

How does the knowledge that the die has six sides, four marked with a cross, two witha circle, and that it will lie with

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one of them turned upwards, make it reasonable to expect a cross rather than acircle? A possibility suggests itself which Hume does not explore. The inference maybe a case of empirical reasoning from past experience; dice similar to this one havealways tended, in any considerable number of throws, to fall an equal number oftimes on each of the sides; therefore a die marked like this one tends to fall twice asoften with a cross uppermost as with a circle. And what has more often happened inthe past is more likely to happen in the future. That is, the probability of chancesreduces itself to a special case of the probability of causes.

This suggestion, however, will not do as it stands, for the following reason. Theconclusion justified by the alleged evidence is that in any considerable number ofthrows the crosses will turn up about twice as often as the circles. What we want is aconclusion about this particular throw. And the only way we can get it from thisevidence is as follows. The throw in question will be one of a number of throws; ofthis number about twice as many will be crosses as will be circles; therefore thisthrow has twice as many chances of being one of the throws that give a cross as ithas of being one of the throws that give a circle, since there will be twice as many ofthem. The probability of causes therefore only yields a conclusion about a particularevent by the aid of the probability of chances.

The conclusion suggested is that the calculation of chances is an antonomous speciesof reasoning whose validity we accept on its own merits, and which is used wheneverwe make a probable inference about a particular event on the evidence of eitherstatistical frequencies or "mathematical odds". This conclusion is accepted by manyphilosophers.

But the validity of this species of reasoning is mysterious. It is not demonstration andit is not induction; it seems to be even more mysterious than induction. Hume says itis just something we in fact do, of which he can give a psychological explanation. Can

we do better than this? Can we give any kind of recommendation of it?

Let us return to the die. We may accept three propositions:

(1) The equality of the chances together with the respective

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numbers of the circles and crosses is the ground of the probable expectation of across.

(2) The behaviour of the die in the past, or of similar objects, is the ultimate evidencefor the equality of the chances. For any tendency of one side to turn up more oftenthan another, or any corresponding inequality in the behaviour of any comparableobject, would be taken as evidence that some cause was present more often than notwhich made it fall on one side rather than on any other, and therefore that thechances were not equal; this would still be the case however much was known aboutthe shape and composition of the die.

(3) From these two propositions it follows that the equality in the past behaviour ofthe die, or of comparable objects, together with the present observed facts about thenumber and marking of the sides, is the ultimate evidence on which the probableexpectation of a cross for any particular throw is founded.

Now if it can be shown that the probable expectation follows directly from thisevidence by any intelligible process of reasoning, our problem will be solved. Theintermediate proposition about the numbers of equal chances will be bypassed, andcan be regarded as a mere convenient summary of the real evidence, a summarywhich is nevertheless philosophically misleading.

Now from the equality of the past behaviour of the die it can be inferred by induction,on the principle that the unobserved will resemble the observed, that in anyconsiderable number of throws, each side will turn up about the same number oftimes. 1 From this it follows by logical entailment, since four of the sides bear a crossand two a circle, that crosses will turn up about twice as often as circles. From this itfollows logically that if I always, as a matter of habit, predict a cross, I shall be righttwice as often as I am wrong. And from this it follows logically that on each occasionon which I predict a cross I am predicting in accordance with a method whichsucceeds twice as often as it fails.

Now it does seem plausible to say that to predict in accordance with a method whichsucceeds more often than it fails is reasonable, in the ordinary sense of the word.

____________________1It is unfortunately extremely difficult to formulate this statement more precisely.

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Turning to the probability of causes, we again find an epistemological and apsychological element in Hume's contentions.

The epistemological contentions consist in a description of the more external conditionsunder which probability judgements are made; or, if you prefer it, under whichsentences of the form "E is probable" are properly uttered in the ordinary use oflanguage.

The psychological contentions consist in a description of the inner psychologicalmechanisms connecting the outer conditions with the utterance of the probabilitystatement.

On the epistemological side, two types of probability judgement are distinguished, theunreflective and the reflective.

Unreflective judgements of probability are made, according to Hume, under two typesof conditions (pp. 133-134); (a) when the event called probable is like only a few pastevents which have happened in circumstances similar to the present situation; i.e.,when we judge on the evidence of a few past cases only, not enough to givecertainty; (b) when there is not merely paucity but contrariety in our experience, andthe event called probable is like what happened in many similar situations in the past,but unlike what happened in some.

This account seems to me true, provided we remember that sometimes specialpsychological factors, permanent or temporary, make people judge with certainty evenunder these conditions.

Hume thinks that the reflective type of probability judgement is far more common inour reasoning (p. 134). In this. type we recall and count up the relevant past casesknown either by memory or previous inference. We then assign to the event anumerical probability value equal to the fraction obtained by dividing the number ofcomparable cases in which a similar event occurred by the total number of comparablecases.

This is evidently a rudimentary description of what we call "statistical method". And itis a very inadequate account. Experience of cyclical, progressive and irregularfluctuations in the frequency of many conjunctions quickly leads us to

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distrust it. What we look for in statistical evidence is either a proportion which isapproximately constant in any random selection of cases, or, failing that, a descriptionof the fluctuations either in terms of periodic cycles or of special factors on which theydepend. We are never content with a mere overall proportion.

Hume points out that both reflective and unreflective judgements of probability, asopposed to certainty, are also made when the resemblance between the present caseand the past cases is imperfect. This species of reasoning is called reasoning byanalogy (p. 142).

On the psychological side Hume accounts for the hesitation characterising unreflectiveprobability judgements by the weakness of the habit set up where there are only afew similar cases in the past, and by the opposition of contrary habits where there is a

contrariety in our experience. To this account we may provisionally assent, and passto the difficult question of the reflective probability judgement.

In the reflective probability judgement we actually recall the past cases and countthem up. In the past, 19 ships have returned safely for every one that was wrecked(p. 135). I now consider the chances of a particular ship which is putting to sea.According to Hume the 19 images of ships returning safely into harbour blend andform a single image, which is 19 times as forcible and vivacious as the single image ofa shipwreck.

This is plainly nonsense. The fused image resulting from the blending of images of full-rigged ships, barques, barquentines, brigs, schooners and luggers, differing in almostevery respect of hull-form, and arrangement of spars and sails, is just the sort ofimage which Berkeley and Hume maintained, in criticism of Locke's Theory of AbstractIdeas, to be impossible. And even if such "generic" images do occur, as some modernpsychologists assert, they are not what is wanted in this sort of thinking. What iswanted is a lively image of this particular ship, say a top-sail schooner, returningsafely to her own particular home port.

It is important to see clearly the difficulty which Hume sought to dispose of by thisexpedient. Hitherto, he has always represented factual inferences, whether certain orprobable, as

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due to the operation of custom. But, as he observes in this section of the Treatise (p.134 ), in considering the unreflective probability judgement, "When we follow only thehabitual determination of the mind, we make the transition without any reflection. . . .As the custom depends not on any deliberation, it operates immediately, withoutallowing any time for reflection". The force of custom then is fully spent in theunreflective judgement. It is the past experiences, not the conscious recollection ofthem, which cause the habitual transition.

How then, when we do reflect, do the recollections of the past cases influence belief?Not, it is evident, by custom; therefore, in some other way. Here is a new cause ofbelief, or at least a new causal factor that modifies the degree of belief; and it seemsto Hume to be present both in the probability of chances and the probability of causes.In the case of the die we have a number of particular ideas, some of themrepresenting a cross turning up, some a circle; in the case of the ships we have anumber of ideas, some representing ships returning safely, some representing thembeing wrecked. In both cases it is the superior number of one kind of idea over theother that determines our belief.

In the Enquiry (Sect. VI, para. 46), the fusion of images is dropped. There he says:

"But finding a greater number of sides (of the die) concur in one event thanin the other, the mind is carried more frequently to that event, and meets itoftener in revolving the various possibilities or chances, on which theultimate result depends. This concurrence of several views in one particularevent begets immediately, by an inexplicable contrivance of nature, thesentiment of belief".

This passage from the. Enquiry suggests an alternative account, more in keeping withHume's theory of general ideas.

According to that theory ( Treatise Book I, Part I, Sect. VII), the various particularimages of different ships returning safe to port, associated with one another byresemblance and with the expression "ship returning safe to port" by customaryconjunction, are all actualisations of the general idea of a ship returning safe to port.The general idea consists in a disposition of the mind to run through such images inassociation with the

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verbal expression. The "vivacity" therefore of a general idea will consist in the vivacityof the particular ideas in which it is actualised; and these will be more vivacious if theyare ideas of memory, not merely of imagination.

Hume could, therefore, plausibly have said that the idea of this particular shipreturning is enlivened by the vivacity of the general idea of which it is an actualisation,that idea being lively on account of the number of memory ideas which it can claimamong its actualisations, and which in a reflective probability judgement have beencounted up.

2. Habit and expectation

Hume has also a more fundamental psychological question to raise. Both in thereflective and unreflective probability judgement we judge in accordance with thepresumption that the future will resemble the past, the unobserved the observed (pp.134 -5, see also Part III, Sect. VI, p. 92 ). How this happens has not yet been fullyexplained.

What we have been told is that the present impression, e.g. flame, being associatedby resemblance with past similar impressions, and they by contiguity with whatfollowed them, i.e. heat, evokes and enlivens the ideas of what has followed on similarimpressions in the past, and that when this happens frequently the transition becomeshabitual. But we have not been told why the lively idea of heat so evoked is taken notmerely as a compelling picture of what has happened, but as a compelling picture ofwhat is now about to happen. How does it come to fit itself on to the presentimpression as a picture of what will follow it? Why do we inevitably tend to form apicture of future developments, and to model that picture on the past?

Hume asserts roundly that the principle that the future will resemble the past "is notfounded on arguments of any kind" (p. 135 ). It is, he says "derived from habit, bywhich we are determined to expect for the future the same train of objects to whichwe have been accustomed". We are told no more.

We must note that the repetition of impressions cannot by itself set up a habit ofexpectation. Habit, according to Hume, consists in doing something, simply becausewe have done that same thing before ( Treatise Book I, Part III, Sect. VIII, p. 105;Enquiry, Sect. V, Part I, para. 36). It cannot, therefore,

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account for our expecting something, because we have often experienced it before, orbecause we have often remembered it before.

We are, therefore, driven to conclude that Hume regarded the forming of expectationson the model of the past as an original inborn habit, i.e. an instinct. Only if wepresuppose this original habit can we see how "when we have lived any time, andhave been accustomed to the uniformity of nature, we acquire a general habit, bywhich we always transfer the known to the unknown, and conceive the latter toresemble the former" ( Enquiry, Sect. IX, para. 84, footnote).

Hume could have given a more plausible account of this instinct if he had consideredthinking in closer relation with action.

What makes us consider the future, it might be said, is that we have desires to besatisfied. In satisfying our desires we have, along with all other living things, atendency to repeat those actions which have been successful in the past; we do it withconfidence when they have always and often been successful; with less confidence,when they have only been tried out on. a few occasions; with hesitation when theyhave sometimes proved unsuccessful. In repeating these actions we use our memoryimages of the past cases, with all their attendants and consequences, as guidingpictures; so used, and perhaps modified, as the action is, to fit in with the peculiaritiesof the present situation, they come to be regarded as representations of the future.

As our actions become more complex, and the satisfactions to which they tend moredistant, the guiding pictures become more and more important, and the formation ofthem becomes itself an activity useful to the satisfaction of desires. Ways of formingthem that prove unsuccessful are dropped in favour of ways of forming them that aresuccessful; and ways of forming them which give shifting and inconsistent pictures,useless for guiding our long-term activities, are dropped for that reason. This isHume's use of general rules founded on our experience of the understanding and itsoperations (p. 148 ). A few examples may make my meaning clearer. The boxer whohas repeatedly stopped his opponent's rushes with a straight left, repeats the action.This simple action to satisfy an

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immediate need requires little or no guiding imagery. The billiards or croquet playerwho plans a series of consecutive strokes on the model of his past successes will havemuch more need of guiding pictures. The General who plans a campaign in accordancewith the lessons of military history will need guiding pictures so complex that he mustcall in the aid of maps, figures, tables, graphs and charts to assist his imagination, andmust make sure that they are compiled by the most reliable methods.

The biological hypothesis that an organism tends to repeat the behaviour which hasbrought it satisfaction in the past, on which this account is based, was probably littleknown, or unknown, in Hume's day; but I think he might well have accepted theaccount as in keeping with his general line of thought. I do not propose, in what

follows, to attempt to reformulate all Hume's contentions in the light of thishypothesis. The reader may attempt to do it for himself if he pleases.

3. "Unphilosophical probability" (Treatise Book I, Part III, Sects. IX,XIII, XV, and Part IV, Sect. I)

Let us first sum up Hume's account of probability as we have so far considered it.

Subjectively considered, probability, or rational belief, is an idea enlivened by apresent impression and steadied and fortified against rival ideas by its being conceivedin accordance with a habit, and in some cases by the fusion of ideas of similar cases.Objectively considered, the probability of an idea consists in the resemblance betweenit, taken together with the impression that evokes it, and events that have repeatedlyoccurred in the past. Subjectively considered, its essence is the smooth click of customand fusion of images, objectively considered its essence is repeated occurrence ofsimilar conjunctions of events. The latter is the cause of the former.

Forming probable beliefs in this way is something we do by nature; and no amount ofsceptical arguments will stop us.

"Nature, by an absolute and uncontrollable necessity, has determined us tojudge as well as to breathe and feel; nor can we any more forbear viewingcertain objects in a stronger and fuller light, upon account of their

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customary connexion with a present impression, than we can hinderourselves from thinking, as long as we are awake, or seeing the surroundingbodies, when we turn our eyes towards them in bright sunshine". ( TreatiseBook I, Part IV, Sect. I, p. 179.)

This is, however, not the only way in which we form lively ideas. As we have seen,ideas are also enlivened by relations with present impressions other than that of causeand effect, to wit resemblance and contiguity; and they are steadied and fixed byhabits based not on repetitions of similar impressions, but on repetitions of similarideas, i.e., by education.

But there is worse to come. Even when our ideas are steadied by habits based onrepetitions of impressions, there are ways in which this can happen, or fail to happen,which we nevertheless do not on reflection call probabilities or improbabilities, andwhich Hume chooses to call "unphilosophical probabilities".

An important question now arises. It is one thing to describe the objects which arerespectively called probabilities, improbabilities, prejudices, superstitions, fancies, andso on; in general it is one thing to describe what is called reasonable thinking andwhat is called unreasonable thinking. But it is another thing to explain and justify thecommendatory and derogatory senses in which we always use these terms. What iswrong with the other relations and other habits, and the unphilosophical probabilities?

Hume's way of dealing with this question, in accordance with his "experimentalmethod", is to point out the causes which make us distrust, dislike, and abstain from

these mental processes, when we do distrust, dislike, and abstain from them. This, inhis view, is a sufficient explanation of the derogatory sense in which their names areused. For justification he is content, so far as I can see, to rely on the method ofchallenge; to challenge anyone not to be influenced by these causes, in the absenceof other special counteracting causes, and not to be influenced by the thought of thesecauses when they are pointed out to him.

We must now try to say what, according to Hume, these causes are, after comparingwhat he says on this matter in various places.

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In Part III, Sect. IX (p. 111 ), he says of the ideas enlivened by other relations, i.e.,contiguity and resemblance, that since, in the absence of a customary or causalconnexion with the present impression, we can form the idea of any object we please,and "of our mere goodwill and pleasure give it a particular relation to the impression",and since on the recurrence of the same impression, we need not "place the sameobject (i.e., idea of an object) in the same relation to it", the mind "from the very firstinstant feels the looseness of its actions", i.e., does not feel that steadiness andresistance to rival ideas which is essential to what we call belief. Such is the differencebetween a fancy and a genuine belief.

He goes on to explain (p. 112) how our perception of this difference puts us on ourguard against fancies. "As this imperfection (i.e., the "looseness") is very sensible inevery single instance, it still increases by experience and observation, when wecompare the several instances we may remember, and form a general rule against thereposing any assurance in those momentary glimpses of light, which arise in theimagination from a feigned resemblance and contiguity". The essence of the generalrule is that it is a generalisation from experience to the effect that certain types oflively ideas are not likely to remain firm and steady. Therefore, not expecting them toremain beliefs, we cease to believe them.

His observations on beliefs due to education (p. 118 ) are similar; experience of thevariability, contradictoriness and artificiality of the maxims of educators, as well as oftheir frequent incompatibility with experience, warns us of instability and inconsistency(i.e., "muddle") to come if we adhere to them. By sticking to experience we can forma consistent and steady picture of the way of the world, including the ways ofeducators, but by sticking to the teaching of educators we can form no such picture.

In the section "Of Unphilosophical Probability" he deals with various other phenomenaon the same lines.

First, the variation in the influence of experiences on our thoughts and actionsaccording to their nearness or remoteness in time. This, he says, we discount in ourwiser moments, because otherwise "an argument must have a different force

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today from what it shall have a month hence". Here again we have a general rule

warning us of muddle to come.

Next he considers the fact that a long chain of connected arguments, carrying themind through a long chain of causes and effects, gives a much less lively persuasionthan a direct causal inference.

This fact troubles Hume as a historian; for, if always operative, it should in timedestroy our assurance of all the propositions of ancient history, the evidence for whichdepends on a long series of verbal reports passing through many mouths to the firsthistorians, and a long series of copies and editions of their works, each new copybeing an effect of the previous one. But he thinks it is "contrary to commonsense" tosuppose that "if the republic of letters and the art of printing continue on the samefooting as at present, our posterity can ever doubt that there was such a man asJulius Cæsar".

His solution of the difficulty is that though the links of the argument are innumerable"they are all of the same kind, and depend on the fidelity of copyists". Therefore, "themind runs easily along them, jumps' from one part to another with facility and formsbut a general notion of each link".

This solution, though possibly not an altogether false description of the mentalprocesses of the casual reader, does scant justice to those of the critical historian. Thelatter surely weighs and adds together the possibilities of falsification at each step ofthe process of tradition, and his belief survives the lengthy chain of evidence, notbecause the links are similar, but because he knows that unless beliefs do so survivethe same argument will have a different force on different occasions, according to thelength of the chain of arguments in which it is a link. This would inevitably lead tomuddle. It is really a special case of the same argument having a different force atdifferent times, which Hume has already noticed.

Next Hume considers (pp. 146 -48) rash generalisations or prejudices, which he alsocalls "general rules" in a bad sense, and inferences in accordance with imperfectanalogies, where the case bears only a superficial resemblance to the previousexperiences by which we judge its expected effects.

As instances, he gives the prejudice that no Irishmen are witty, and the fear of fallingentertained by a man suspended

G

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at a great height in a strong iron cage. These cases he says are at bottom of thesame kind. In each a certain feature of objects or situations has often, perhapsalways, been associated in a man's experience with some other feature, which excitessome passion. Irish nationality has been accompanied by dullness in many cases,great height has been followed by falls. Thus the man tends to expect dullness in anyIrishman, although welleducated Irishmen are often witty, and a fall, though the ironcage is an adequate support. The habit formed by the perfectly resembling cases, theill-educated Irishmen he has met, the ill-supported elevations, assisted by thepassions of dislike and fear, run away with his fancy and operate in cases which only

imperfectly resemble them.

Such convictions, Hume says, can only be corrected by "general rules" in the goodsense; "these rules are formed on the nature of our understanding, and on ourexperience of its operations in the judgements we form concerning objects. By themwe learn to distinguish the accidental circumstances from the efficacious causes". Wemake some rash generalisation or inference; "but when we take a review of this act ofthe mind, and compare it with the more general and authentic operations of theunderstanding, we find it to be of an irregular nature, and destructive of all the mostestablished principles of reasoning, which is the cause of our rejecting it". Thiscorrection is not always made; in wise men the general rules in the good senseprevail, the vulgar are commonly guided by the bad kind of general rules.

These general rules then are generalisations about the way our minds work; notgeneralisations, as far as Hume here suggests, about the successfulness or the reverseof different kinds of expectations, but simply about the way our minds normally workwhen not influenced by transient passions and fancies. We do not normally expect athing of a kind x, which has often been followed by a consequence of a kind y, tohave that consequence where a feature z is present, which always has consequencesincompatible with y.

If, therefore, I expect to fall from my high position, though supported by a strong ironcage, my expectation is "irregular", inconsistent with our general view of things, likelyto disappear when I return to a normal state of mind and likely to be

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opposed to the expectations of other normal observers; in short, a source of muddle.This way of thinking cannot give us a steady and consistent picture of the world. Theother, the reasonable way, can, and can account for the occurrence of the irregularways of thinking, as Hume does. Steadiness and consistency of conception is not onlya sine qua non of genuine belief, but is also what we like, 1 and, therefore, we preferthose operations of the imagination which we find can give it, to those which we finddo not.

Finally, we must consider what Hume says in the section "Of Scepticism with regard toReason".

Here we are told that the mind, having experience of its own liability to provemistaken, tends to correct all its judgements, both those of relations of ideas, e.g.,mathematics, and those of probability and matter of fact, by probable judgements ofthe chances of its having been mistaken.

Here is a new kind of general rule, a generalisation not about how we normally think,but about the frequencies of success and failure attained by our different mentalprocesses in various circumstances. We run over our calculations again and again, weget them checked by others, we distrust them if we were tired when we made them,and so on. And these reflex judgements themselves require a similar correction, andan estimate of the chances of being mistaken in our estimation of the chances of errorin our original inference. The process can be continued ad libitum.

Here then is another cause which leads us to prefer "probable" beliefs to fancies,prejudices, and other irrational beliefs; to wit, our experience of their superiorreliability.

We can now sum up Hume's account of "rationality" and "irrationality" and his case forbeing "rational".

Ideas enlivened by other relations, because of the looseness and arbitrary nature ofthe process, fail to steady our conceptions at all. Ideas inculcated by education aredistrusted because they are found to be mutually inconsistent, dependent on variablecauses, inconsistent with experience and incapable of giving us a fixed and steadyconception of the way of the

____________________1Steadiness and consistency, freedom from muddle, are according to Hume theobjects of a "calm but strong passion", which also plays an important part informing our moral judgements. ( Treatise Book II, Part III, Sect. III; Book III, PartI, Sect. I, and Part III. Sect. I).

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world. Variations of assurance due to lapse of time and length of argument, implying afluctuation in the force of the same argument, are a source of inconsistency andinstability in our beliefs. Rash generalisations and faulty analogies are contrary to our"general rules" about the way the mind normally works, and so cannot be expected togive us a steady and lasting conviction. Finally, "reasonable" beliefs are beliefs of thekind experience shows to be most reliable.

On the whole, therefore, reason, i.e., trust in experience, gives us that steady,consistent, comprehensive conception of things which is genuine belief, and which wedesire in our fear of muddle, and gives us also a steady picture of the causes ofmuddle. It is the function of habit to steady and fix our ideas; turning in on itself itaccustoms us to expect this steadiness from some habits rather than others, and soprovides a remedy for its own imperfections.

4. Scepticism (Treatise Book I, Part IV, Sect. I)

So far Hume's philosophy presents a hopeful, positive, antisceptical aspect. We have away of reasoning capable of giving us a steady and comprehensive set of beliefsstateable partly in the form of established generalisations without known exceptions(proofs) and partly of established statistical frequencies. Of this way of reasoning,since experience shows it to be reliable, we have no grounds to complain, unless wemake the mistake of demanding logical demonstrations outside their proper sphere,the relations of ideas.

But in the section "Of Scepticism with regard to Reason" this cup of comfort is nosooner offered than it is dashed from our lips. Probable reasoning, we are told (p. 178), is selfdestructive rather than self-confirmatory, and nothing but inattention, due tothe strain of following out its self-destructive procedure, can save us from totalscepticism. Fortunately, nature has seen to it that we always are so saved.

The argument may be put as follows. We establish, say, a 99/100 probability for acertain proposition; remembering that we are always liable to error we examine theprobability of our being right in this estimate; we find it is, say, 999/1000. Theprobability of the original proposition sinks to the product of 99/100 and 999/1000,i.e., 98901/100000. Since we are always

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liable to be mistaken in any calculation or inference, this process must be repeated adinfinitum, and each time the probability will diminish. Hume argues that no probabilitycan subsist under an infinite number of diminutions, and that, had we patience to beideally reasonable, and to correct all our judgements by estimates of the likelihood ofbeing mistaken, no probabilities would remain at all.

I am not seriously perturbed by this argument. Let us call a judgement which is notabout judgements, but about other things, a first-order judgement, and a judgementabout the reliability of a first-order judgement a second-order judgement. Now itseems evident to commonsense that the second-order judgement that I am verylikely, though not certain, to be correct in some first-order judgement increases ratherthan diminishes the authority of that first-order judgement. We feel more, not lessinclined to believe what Mr. Churchill says, when he reminds us that he has "notalways been wrong". Hume himself seems to admit this at the bottom of p. 177 .

I suspect that even if the principle of the multiplication of probabilities applies toprobability judgements of different orders (which I doubt), the application iscomplicated by the fact that the higher-order judgements, being based on a muchwider range of experiments, in some cases on our whole experience of the workings ofthe human mind and the progress of science, may give more in added weight to theevidence, than they take away by diminishing the probability fraction; just as, evenwhere first-order judgements only are concerned, we feel more confident of ourrecovery from a disease on the evidence of very full statistics giving a chance ofrecovery of 4/5, than we do on the evidence of very meagre statistics showing achance of recovery of 9/10. 1

I suggest, therefore, that Hume's sceptical argument can be disregarded as a mistake,and his positive account and recommendation of probable reasoning accepted as insubstance

____________________1I have, throughout the discussion on probability, avoided the very difficult questionwhether the mere number of favourable cases, independently of the variety of theircircumstances, affects the probability of the proposition in support of which they arecited. I think Hume assumes that it does; he certainly thinks it does in the case ofunreflective probability judgements, based on habit alone. It is not clear whether hedoes, or ought to, assume it in the case of reflective probability judgements.

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the best that can be offered. This is quite compatible with granting to Hume that in

practice, for most people, weariness and inattention are a surer defence againstsceptical sophistries than are any counter arguments, valid or invalid, whichphilosophers can devise.

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CHAPTER VllNECESSARY CONNEXION(Treatise Book I, Part III, Sect. XIV)I. The question and the answer

THE lengthy preparations are now over, and the scene is set for the kill. A lesserwriter, exhausted by so many attendant enquiries, and feeling that he had virtuallygiven the answer already, might have allowed the final section on the idea ofnecessary connexion to fall a little flat. Hume, on the contrary, gives us a sectionsplendid with eloquence, rich in intimations of a philosophical attitude whosepossibilities are only now being fully developed, and remorseless in the logic withwhich he forestalls every possible argument by which the reader may seek to escapethe conclusion, which he states again and again in ever more forcible terms.

The question is, what is the impression from which we derive that idea of necessaryconnexion, which is an essential part of our idea of the relation of cause and effect?

The answer is inevitable, after all that has been said about belief, probability and theway in which we actually come to pronounce one event the cause of another, andinfer from the one to the other; and the answer is given on the second page of thesection (p. 154 )

There is a feeling of being determined by custom to pass from a certain impression toa certain idea. That feeling makes the idea a belief. That same feeling makes us callthe event represented an effect and the transition an inference. That same feelingwhen it continues, supported by fusion of images, after we have surveyed all therelations of likeness and difference between the present case and the rest of ourexperience, makes us call the inference probable or reasonable. It is this very

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same feeling which is the impression from which the idea of necessary connexion isderived.

Hume's contention is partly negative; he is denying something which otherphilosophers, and to a certain extent plain men, have believed in. They have believedthat there is either a certain direct relation between certain objects and events, oralternatively a certain quality in certain objects, whose names are "necessaryconnexion", "power", "agency", "force", "energy", "efficacy", which terms, he says, arenearly synonymous. People think that somewhere in objects there is a quality in virtueof which, when something happens in that object or in that part of it where the qualityresides, certain consequences must ensue; much as people think that in certain men,

such as Napoleon, there is some quality in virtue of which, if they will or order othersto do something, those others do that thing.

How nebulous and unintelligible this notion is in regard to "powerful men" is the themeof the final chapter of Tolstoy's "War and Peace".

Again, some fatalists think that events succeed one another as they do, because theyare inscribed on a sort of scroll which is unrolled steadily in the direction that goesfrom future to past; each event enters the illuminated circle of the present because itis drawn into it by the previous event, now passing into the twilight of the past, and asit comes draws after it its successor on the "scroll of fate".

There is no faintest confirmation in experience for any such supposition, says Hume.Nor would any such quality or relation do the work that we require of it, that is enableus to infer from the observed to the unobserved. What is more capricious than thebehaviour of powerful men, or more unpredictable than the waning of their powers?Of what use to us to know that the future is the predetermined sequel of the present,unless we know what order of future events is written on the scroll?

To some minds the laws of nature as conceived in classical physics, Newton's law ofgravity for instance, seemed to afford a clear notion of the union of necessaryregularity and efficacious powers. Was it not called the force of gravity? Was it notalso called the law of gravity?

But how do the moon and sun pull the tidal waters of the

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earth? How does the sun hold the planets in their orbits? Action at a distance? Exertedthrough what medium? The notion is far from clear. And what of the necessaryregularity? When we look into the grounds of our belief in its necessity we can findnothing but the influence of concealed tautologies, 1 and the evidence of experience,which is only experience of regular movements.

Hume then denies the existence of any power or agency in objects; his denial is basedon what I have called the method of challenge. He says "If any one think proper torefute this assertion, he need not put himself to the trouble of inventing any longreasonings, but may at once show us an instance of a cause where we discover thepower or operating principle. This defiance we are obliged frequently to make use of,as being almost the only means of proving a negative in philosophy".

But, someone will say, there may be such a thing, though we cannot observe it. In theDeity, as the Cartesians and Berkeley. supposed, or in the unobservable ultimateconstituent particles of matter, as Locke supposed, real power may reside.

But this is to miss the force of Hume's challenge. If you are not acquainted with anyinstance of power in an object, or of anything like it in its essential attributes, thenyou can have no idea what it is you suppose to be there. You have no model on whichto frame your conception, and therefore, unless you lay claim to innate ideas, youcannot have such a conception. "All ideas are derived from and represent impressions.We never have any impression that contains any power or efficacy. We never,

therefore, have any idea of power".

Now, as we have seen, according to the underlying implications of Hume's view ofimpressions and ideas, and of abstract ideas, "To have an idea of power" is to knowwhat "power" means. If we have no idea of power, we do not know what "power"means. It is not, therefore, an intelligible question of fact whether the Deity or atomshave power. It is a meaningless question. "We do not understand our own meaning intalking so" (p. 166 ).

____________________1"Every body continues in its state of rest or uniform motion, except in so far as it iscompelled by a force to change that state" is a disguised definition of what wemean by "force".

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We may choose, Hume says, to call by the name of "power" whatever unknownproperties material or immaterial objects may have, and if we do "it will be of littleconsequence to the world". "But when instead of meaning these unknown qualities, wemake the terms of power and efficacy signify something of which we have a clearidea, and which is incompatible with those objects to which we apply it, obscurity anderror begin then to take place".

Hume then does deny the existence of any power or necessary connexion in objects.The suggestion of it is meaningless. And necessary connexion is an essential elementin our idea of a causal relation between objects. Does it then follow, as some havesupposed, that Hume denies the existence of relations of cause and effect betweenobjects, and regards such talk as nonsensical?

I do not think it does. It is true that he regards the idea of necessary connexion as anessential part of the idea of a causal relation between objects; but he denies that theidea of a necessary connexion residing in the objects is an essential part of our idea ofa causal relation between them. On the contrary, he defines the causal relation interms of temporal succession, spatial contiguity and constant conjunction of theobjects, plus a customary transition of the mind. And the feel of this customarytransition is what is expressed by such terms as "necessary connexion", when we callthe objects necessarily connected. It is significant and true to say that flame causesheat; but the constituent elements of the relationship are divided, temporal and spatialcontiguity and constant conjunction being in the objects, their necessary connexionbeing something in the mind.

The terms "necessity", "power", etc., refer, therefore, to a felt process in our ownminds concerned with our thoughts about objects which we have experienced. Anysuch term is, therefore, "incompatible with those objects to which we apply it", whenwe apply it to the purely objective relations and qualities of things, apart from ourthought about them, or to objects beyond the reach of our experience. No suchobjects can possibly correspond to the idea, and that is why philosophers who tried tomake them do so found the topic so difficult.

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2. The importance of the answer

Let us now consider the philosophical importance of Hume's contention. It is importantin two ways. First, as a proposed solution of a major philosophical problem; "I havejust now examined one of the most sublime questions in philosophy, viz., thatconcerning the power and efficacy of causes where all sciences seem so muchinterested" (p. 154 ). Secondly, as a classical example of the right way of solvingthose problems which admit of philosophical solution. We will consider these twoimportances in order.

Philosophers in trying to explain the universe were from the earliest times interestedin two main questions: What is the universe made of, and how does it work? Thesecond of these is the question of the efficacy of causes. Many tried to find a closeconnexion between the two questions: If the universe be made of fire, it must workby burning ( Heraclitus). If the universe be made of small hard particles or atoms, itmust work by the continual falling of these atoms in the void and the movementsgenerated by their collisions ( Epicurus, Lucretius). Others, seeing that the processesof burning, falling, and communicating motion by impulse, though common andfamiliar, were yet unintelligible and required explanation, supposed that the operatingprinciple must be the will or purpose of some mind or minds by which the universe isanimated or controlled.

To Plato and Aristotle this last seemed the only intelligible sort of explanation. TheCartesians and Occasionalists also, finding in their conception of matter no suggestionof power or activity, supposed the will of the Deity to be the only true operatingprinciple. Leibnitz and Berkeley went further and maintained that the universeconsisted wholly of minds, and consequently worked by the influence of voluntaryactivity alone.

But in spite of the massing of philosophical opinions on the side of explanation interms of voluntary purpose, the materialist view continued to appeal to naturalscientists, who found much fruitful use for such conceptions as physical energy,attraction, and gravity, however obscure they might be to philosophers.

Each school believed in "power", whether they ascribed it

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to matter or to will. Hume's complaint against all these philosophers is expressed onp. 155 of the Treatise.

"Before they entered on these disputes, methinks it would not have beenimproper to have examined what idea we have of that efficacy, which is thesubject of the controversy. This is what I find principally wanting in theirreasonings, and what I shall here endeavour to supply".

They did not ask exactly what it was they were looking for, what was the exactmeaning of the question. Or rather, if they did ask, they were content with verbaldefinitions in terms which were merely synonymous, "efficacy", "agency", "power",

"force", "energy", "necessity", "connexion", "productive quality".

We are thus led to the importance of Hume's contention as an example ofphilosophical method.

What we should do, Hume tells us (p. 155 ), is to search for the idea, not indefinitions, "but in the impressions from which it is originally derived". Thephilosophical question is just what do we mean by certain terms, and the philosophicalanswer will consist ultimately, not in a formal definition, but in some way of focusingour attention on just those elements of experience with which the words arecustomarily connected.

"This", a notable modern philosopher 1 may be heard repeatedly to say in the courseof a philosophical discussion, "is a conceptual investigation". Fires, moving bodies,human wills have power or energy according to the ordinary way of speaking; that is astatement of empirical fact. Before asking whether only moving bodies, or only willsreally have power, which is a metaphysical question, let us ask just what it is aboutthese things that makes us say they have power; this last is a conceptual question. Ifyou wish to maintain that properly or more exactly speaking only wills, or only movingbodies have power, point out to us just what discoverable peculiarities they have, andhow these peculiarities make this more exact way of speaking superior to the ordinaryway.

So far the matter seems fairly simple. The problem should be no more difficult thanthat of making clear by stories and examples what is meant by calling a person"kind". But it is

____________________1Professor Wittgenstein.

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not simple. It has never been a major philosophical question in what persons kindnessreally resides or in what parts of them. Some peculiar difficulty attends the concept ofnecessity or power.

What happens is that, though it is natural in the ordinary way of speaking to say thatmoving bodies have power and that there are necessary connexions between theirmovements and their collisions, when we examine these objects and events closely wefind nothing which it seems natural so to describe. Consequently philosophers havebeen driven to say that the power and necessity must really lie elsewhere, in theirconcealed properties or in the Deity.

This sort of thing goes on, until, having excluded power and necessity from allobservable and confined it to unobservable objects, we wonder how we can ever havecome by this idea at all, and either conclude that it is an innate idea, whatever thatmay mean, or that we have no such idea, and that the terms are meaningless. Butplainly the terms are not meaningless; they form very useful items in our everydayvocabulary; and plainly they do not stand for innate ideas, because we use them tomark some differences or other which only experience can discover. Which things andpersons have power, and what they have power to do, are empirical questions.

This is the situation that makes this particular "conceptual investigation" bothnecessary and difficult; and Hume shows his understanding of the nature of thesituation in the following passage (pp. 160 -61):--

"Thus upon the whole we may infer that when we talk of any being . . . asendowed with a power or force . . . ; when we speak of a necessaryconnexion betwixt objects, and suppose that this connexion depends on anefficacy or energy with which any of these objects are endowed; in all theexpressions, so applied, we have really no distinct meaning, and make useonly of common words, without any clear and determinate ideas. But as it ismore probable that these expressions do here lose their true meaning bybeing wrong applied, than that they never have any meaning; it will be'proper to bestow another consideration on this subject, to see if possibly wecan

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discover the nature and origin of those ideas we annex to them".

Hume suggests, in short, that the cause of the trouble is that, through failure tounderstand the ordinary use of these terms, we have used them in contexts wherethey have no meaning. The remedy is to clear up the normal use of these terms.

In order to do this Hume repeats arguments he has used before (p. 161 et seq.). Hedescribes just what does happen that makes us say that two objects are necessarilyconnected or that one is the cause of the other; i.e., they are constantly conjoined inexperience and we habitually expect the one when we see the other. Since the trueuse of such terms as "necessity" and "power" is to express this feeling of customarytransition (or inference) in the mind, if we try to use them to stand for a purelyobjective relation between things, it is not surprising that we can find or imagine nosuch objective relation. It is like looking for effective oratory in the land of the deaf.

This, then, is the lesson of Hume's account of necessary connexion, regarded as anexample of philosophical method. Philosophical problems arise through commonwords, whose common use is insufficiently understood, being "wrong applied"; theyare to be solved by examining the common use, and seeing just what applications ofthe words must be "wrong", or at best misleading.

But there remains one question. Why do we have this very strong tendency to abusecertain words, and why do we find it so difficult to give it up? Why is Hume's accountof necessary connexion so "violent" a paradox, as he admits it to be? (p. 164 ).

Hume's answer is, that "the mind has a great propensity to spread itself on externalobjects, and to conjoin with them any internal impressions which they occasion, andwhich always make their appearance at the same time that these objects discoverthemselves to the senses" (p. 165 ).

Thus, he says, tastes and smells are spoken and thought of as being located in theobjects that give rise to them, though properly speaking tastes and smells are notlocated anywhere. Pleasures and pains, he might have added, are spoken of as if they

were qualities of the objects which occasion them. Not

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only is the apple sweet, it is also "delicious". And in particular, he is going to maintain,those peculiar pleasures and pains which the thought of certain things and humanactions and dispositions produces, approval and disapproval, enjoyment and disgust,are spoken of as if they were inherent qualities of the objects, qualities whose namesare "right" and "wrong", "good" and "bad", "beautiful" and ugly".

Hume does not offer any further explanation of this natural propensity of the mind tospread itself on objects. It is just an empirical fact about us.

It is not, we should notice, the same as what is often called the tendency to"anthropomorphic projection"; nor is his account of the idea of causal power the sameas that which represents it as an anthropomorphic projection of the feeling ofmuscular effort or voluntary striving (p. 159 ). It is not, according to Hume, that byan inadequate analogy we come to ascribe to the wind or to the engine of our car thesame experience of striving and muscular effort which we feel when we blow or pull;though I think we do actually tend to do this. It is that we mistake our own inference,the habitual compulsion which we feel to pass from belief in one proposition to beliefin another, for a quality in things compelling a transition in fact from the state ofaffairs described by one proposition to the state of affairs described by the other.

It is a difficult question whether this tendency is the cause or the effect of the deviceof language by which we use terms such as "produce", "necessitate", "must follow","force", etc., as grammatical predicates of the the objects of which we speak, althoughtheir real purpose is to express our internal impression. It is certain, I think, that thistrick of language has fortified metaphysicians in adhering to the errors Hume exposes;and it is not difficult to suggest an explanation of this trick of language based on factswhich Hume himself notices.

Were we content to express merely the sentiments of the moment as they originallyarise in the soul, we should no doubt need for the purpose only expletives and verbssuch as like, dislike, love, hate, etc. But, as Hume is at pains to point out in respect ofthe sentiments both of belief and moral approval, in order to avoid the inconveniencesof constant muddle and conflict both with ourselves and others, we regulate andcorrect

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our sentiments by "general rules". We, therefore, require special terms for theexpression of these corrected sentiments. Thus belief which is confined, irrespective ofother considerations, to what is very or exactly like what has invariably or oftenhappened, requires a special form of expression. And so does approval confined to thesort of action which in nearly all cases brings pleasant consequences to most peopleconcerned, irrespective of the particular interests of the speaker in the present case.Since these corrected sentiments depend on the answers to factual questions (is thislike what has always happened? does this usually lead to consequences most human

beings like? etc.), it is natural to express them in the form of statements of objectivefact, "this is probable", or "this is a necessary consequence of x", or "that act is right".

3. Objections to Hume's answer

There are, I think, only three objections of any weight that can be brought againstHume's account. All of them are answered by Hume himself.

The first is that causes operate whether we are thinking of them or not; but, accordingto Hume's view, necessity, an essential element in the causal relation, lies in ourthought about the objects, not in the objects.

Hume's answer is simple (p. 166 ). Regularity of succession is, we find, a real propertyof objects. We have no reason to doubt that heated metals do in fact expand when weare not observing them, just as much as when we are. But if we ascribe more thanregularity to the objects, we are talking nonsense. I do not think the modern scientistwould complain of this answer. He claims to describe "operations of nature which areindependent of our thought and reasoning". But he does not claim to do more thandescribe them. He does not claim to explain them by reference to any secret inherentpowers and necessities.

The second objection is that Hume's account is circular; he defines the necessaryconnexion of objects in terms of a necessary connexion in the mind between animpression and an associated lively idea. Or, to put it another way, his account is self-contradictory. He says that necessity is not to be found anywhere in nature, "neitherin superior nor inferior natures,

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neither in body nor in spirit". But he also says that "necessity is something that existsin the mind" (p. 163 ).

Hume's answer to this objection is given in a paragraph at the bottom of p. 166 andthe top of p. 167 , in which he explains exactly in what sense necessity is in the mind.

Before considering this passage it is worth pointing out that Hume's usual word for theinternal impression from which the idea of necessity is derived is "determination",which lends colour to the objection. This word, however, is not included in the list ofwords he gives on p. 155 as synonyms for "power" and "necessity". It is true that hedoes on p. 110 of the Treatise speak of the mind as feeling itself "necessarilydetermined to view these particular ideas". It is clear, I think, what Hume means inthat passage by "necessary". "Determined" means, as often elsewhere, "determined bycustom". When he says that custom necessarily determines us to view a particularidea, he means that that particular idea succeeds the impression with the peculiarfacility, the felt familiar click which is characteristic of any habitual action, 1 and thatno other idea does; custom thus ties us down to that particular idea; and in this senseit is "necessary" to form this particular idea rather than any other. Hume also uses thephrase "necessarily determined" of our assent to intuitive and demonstrativepropositions (p. 97 ). Here again he means that the mind can only conceive one ideain a certain way and cannot conceive incompatible ideas in that way; but in this case

it is tied down, not by custom, but by the inconceivability, i.e., self-contradictorinessof all incompatible ideas. They cannot be conceived clearly.

Let us now consider the passage on pp 166 and 167 ; though it can scarcely beimproved upon, I will give a free paraphrase.

I receive an impression of, say, a flame, and feel determined to form a lively idea ofheat. It is this feeling of determination which I refer to when I say that the flame andthe heat are necessarily connected. Now the objection to be considered says that thisdetermination is itself a necessary connexion between

____________________1This feeling is experienced every day in such actions as tying a shoe-lace, changinggear on a car, making a correct citation from a multiplication table or a familiarpoem, or spelling a word correctly.

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the impression of flame and the idea of heat; so that one necessary connexion ismerely substituted for another.

Hume's answer is that there is no such substitution in his account. It is a trueproposition that flame is necessarily connected with heat. But this proposition does notmean that the impression of flame is necessarily connected with the idea of heat. Itsimply expresses the feeling of customary transition from the impression to the idea,and asserts the constant conjunction of flame and heat. It is also a true propositionthat the impression of flame causes, and is, therefore, necessarily connected with, theidea of heat. This second proposition asserts another constant conjunction, betweenthe impression and the idea, and expresses another felt determination of the mind,i.e., the customary feeling of the transition from the experience of having animpression of a flame to the expectation of forming an idea of heat. At whatever levelof reflexion we predicate a necessary connexion, we are never asserting more thanconstant conjunction of the objects we speak of, and are always expressing acustomary facility in the transition of our thoughts about them. And this holds goodeven when we are thinking about our thoughts.

There is here no such vicious infinite regress as, for instance, Professor Whitehead 1

thinks. Hume is not saying that the necessary connexion between flame and heatconsists in a necessary connexion between our impression of flame and our idea ofheat, and that that necessary connexion consists in a necessary connexion betweenthe thought of an impression of flame, and the thought of an idea of heat, and so on.That would indeed be a vicious infinite regress. He makes clear that each time we say"necessary connexion", we express a new feeling of determination. The necessaryconnexion between flame and heat is the feeling attending the transition from theimpression of flame to the idea of heat. The necessary connexion between theimpression of flame and the idea of heat is the new feeling attending the transitionfrom the thought of an impression of flame to that of an idea of heat. The two feelingsare separate entities, and the two necessary connexions are two distinct necessaryconnexions. The former is not identified with the

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1"Process and Reality", p. 196. For defence of Hume, compare John Laird "Hume'sPhilosophy of Human Nature", p. 128.

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latter, nor even defined in terms of it. The necessary connexion between the flameand the heat is defined in terms of the feeling attending our thoughts about them. Thenecessary connexion between our thoughts about them is something different, and isdefined in terms of the feeling attending our thoughts about those thoughts.

You can, of course, go on reflecting, and reflecting about your reflexions and reflectingabout your reflexions about your reflexions, and so on, as long as you please. Butwasting your time in this way does not convict Hume of a vicious infinite regress.

The third principal objection is considered by Hume on p. 159 of the Treatise, andmuch more fully in the Enquiry, Sect. V, Part II, paras. 51-53. This objection is thatthough external objects give us no idea of power or necessary connexion, we have aninternal impression of it, and are every moment conscious of the power of the willover the movements of the body and the processes of the mind. Hume denies that wehave any such consciousness.

In the fuller treatment in the Enquiry he makes three points with regard to the powerof the will over the body.

First, so far from the influence of mind on body being something of which we areintimately conscious, it is one of the most mysterious principles in nature and quitebeyond our comprehension. We cannot understand how unextended mind, which iseither a spiritual substance or not a substance at all, is able "to actuate the grossestmatter". Were we intimately conscious of this power of the will over the body, wemust know it; we should know and understand how mind actuates matter, and itwould not be the inexplicable philosophical conundrum that it is.

I do not find this argument very convincing. It is perfectly conceivable that we mayreally be aware of something unique, which is inexplicable and mysterious in that,being unique and unlike anything else, it cannot be explained by means of any generalconcepts or laws which occur in any scientific or philosophical system. Nevertheless,Hume may be right in thinking that this unique something, if we are aware of it, doesnot answer to our idea of necessary connexion; and this follows, I think, from hissecond argument.

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His second argument is that it is only by experience that we find out which parts ofour body are under the control of the will, and when they are. It is not by beingconscious of a lack of some peculiar quality in my volition to move my ears, or my legwhen it has "gone to sleep", that I learn that I lack the "power to do so". It is simplyby finding that the willed movement does not in fact follow in these cases. Therewould be no need of these experiments, Hume argues, if I could tell by mereinspection, which of my volitions had efficacious power and which had not. From this it

follows that, whatever unique qualities we may be aware of in our volitions, none ofthem is "power" in the sense required; for they may be present in the volition, and yetthe willed movement may not follow. The will may be powerless, and only by tryingand seeing can we discover if it is.

This third argument is that "we learn by anatomy" that the immediate effect ofsuccessful volition is not the movement of the arm or finger of which we areconscious, but certain changes in the "muscles and nerves and animal spirits, and,perhaps, something still more minute and more unknown"; changes, that is, of whichwe are not conscious. We cannot then be directly aware of a necessary connexionbetween two events, of one of which we are not conscious at all.

I find both these two arguments unanswerable.

Hume then proceeds to point out that similar arguments apply to the power of the willover the ideas of the imagination; particularly the second argument. We have notalways the same command over our ideas; sometimes, as when we cannot remembersomething, an idea refuses to obey the summons of the will; sometimes an idearefuses to be banished from the mind. Only by trying and seeing can we tell whensuch volitions are effective.

I conclude then that in its broad outlines at least Hume's conclusion about necessaryconnexion is inescapable. "The necessary connexion depends on the inference" ratherthan vice versa. "The necessary connexion . . . is the foundation of our inference . . .the foundation of our inference is the transition arising from the accustomed union.These, therefore, are the same". Flame has the power to produce heat, heat mustattend flame. If there is a flame heat necessarily follows. The

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force of all these words is to express an inference, or a readiness to make aninference; perhaps also, though this Hume did not consider, to recommend theinference, or to commit ourselves to it. Inferences are made, or at least only adheredto, approved of, recommended, accepted, in cases where there is either a logicalrelation of ideas, i.e. a connexion of meaning, or a constant conjunction in experiencesuch as Hume describes, or something like it. They are never founded on an insightinto some real necessitation in the nature of things.

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CHAPTER VIIIBODIES

(Treatise Book I, Part IV, Sects. II and IV)1. The problem

Hume'S views on our belief in the existence of material objects (and the same is trueof his account of the self) are far more sceptical and far less convincing than any ofhis contentions that we have hitherto examined, except his mistaken theory of theself-destructiveness in theory of probable reasoning.

Philosophers have always been perplexed by an acute difficulty about our knowledgeof the material world.

It is by the sensations we get that we decide questions about material things; removethese sensations and we should know nothing of them. But when we ask what are therelations between our sensations and material things which enable the former to serveas the touchstone of truth with regard to the latter, we encounter difficulties.

Reflection shows that our sensations are very different in kind from the material thingswe believe to exist. They are interrupted where the material things are believed to bepersistent, they are dependent as to their qualities and their existence on our wills 1

where the material things are believed to be independent, they alter where thematerial things are believed to remain unchanged.

Scientific investigations, based on a primary acceptance of the evidence of the senses,re-emphasise and increase these differences. All the sensible qualities by which oursensations are differentiated and characterised are found to be due to our ownconstitutions, subjective effects of material causes. Colour, warmth, hardness, noise,smell, like aches and pains and tastes, are found to be nothing in the objects; removethe conscious

____________________1i.e. on our voluntary movements.

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observer and they would vanish away. They are therefore called "secondary" qualities.The "primary" qualities remaining to the object are shape, size, position, motion andthe like, the list varying from time to time according to the current scientific theories.Even the primary qualities of shape, size and motion are very different from theapparent shapes, sizes and motions directly revealed to us in sense-experience. Thedevelopments of modern physics have done nothing to diminish the difference.Finally,as Descartes pointed out, there is an absolute absence of any logical connexionbetween sensations and material objects. Not only is it conceivable that there shouldbe material things but no sensations (which would happen if there were no livingthings), but it is also conceivable that there should be sensations, or occurrencesindistinguishable from them, but no material things. Dreams and hallucinationsillustrate this possibility. Why should not all our experience be a dream, a meremagic-lantern show contrived by an all-powerful arch-deceiver?The question arises,how do we nevertheless form conclusions about material things on the evidence of oursenses, and form them with such complete assurance that for most of our everydaywaking lives we scarcely distinguish the material object from its sensible appearances?

Philosophers have offered three main types of answer:--I. The mystical answer. The material world suggested by sense is an illusion. There

is within it no step from "It seems to me" to "It is". Reality, as distinct fromappearance, is wholly non-material, consisting either solely of spirits, or of spiritsand objects that are intelligible but not sensible. This is the answer found in muchof Plato's writings, in the Hindu philosophy of "Maya", and in Christian Science.

II. The rationalist answer. Besides the ideas derived from the senses and retained inthe imagination, we have ideas of another kind derived from another source;purely intellectual concepts, such as substance, cause, and the concepts of puremathematics, the power of forming which is an innate gift from the Creator. Bymeans of these ideas we can reason out what the external world must be like inorder for us to receive the sensations we do receive. The validity of these innateideas is

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proved from the veracity of God. The idea of a perfect, and therefore non-deceiving God, is itself an innate idea containing in itself the logical necessity ofthe real existence of its object, as set out in the ontological argument (see Ch.V). This was the answer of Descartes.

III. The phenomenalist answer. There are no innate ideas; all our ideas are derivedfrom experience, and consequently all our knowledge. We can therefore form noidea of a material world absolutely distinct from sensible appearances; if we couldit would not help to explain our sense-experiences, since the interaction of mindand matter, thus absolutely conceived, is admitted to be inexplicable; since wecannot form the idea of such a material world, the supposition of its existence isnonsensical, and the question of its truth simply does not arise. It does not,however, follow that the sensible world is a mere illusion, as the mystics said.Within it the distinctions between reality and illusion, object and appearance, holdgood. A real thing is a class of sense-experiences that occur, or would occur giventhe appropriate sensory context, according to settled rules, and for any mindfulfilling the conditions of those rules. The appearances are the individual sense-experiences that are members of the class, and apparent qualities thosepredicable of the individual members but not of the class. Delusions areexperiences confined to certain individual minds and occurring according todifferent kinds of rules, or no rules at all. The thing therefore is the class of itsappearances, the nature of the thing is the rules according to which itsappearances occur, and the general rules according to which all appearancesoccur are the "laws of nature". These rules are learned from experience, and areall that the natural scientist can discover. There is no explanation of the rules ofthe order of appearances except the will of God. This was the view of BishopBerkely.

According to Berkely there were two prevalent errors to be avoided: (a) The error of"the vulgar", who, identifying things with their sensible appearances, yet supposethese appearances (sounds, colours, etc.) to exist unperceived in the same sense of"exist" as they exist when perceived. This he says is wrong. Unperceived sensibleobjects exist only in the hypothetical sense that they could be perceived, or in somedifferent and to us unknown manner in the mind of God. As

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known to us, they are permanent possibilities of sensation. (b) The error of thescientists ("the philosophical system" as Hume calls it), who think that they canexplain, not merely describe, the order of appearances, in terms of materialsubstances conceived as distinct and different from the appearances, and as causes ofthem.

Now Hume was plainly too wedded to commonsense and experience to have any truckwith the mystical answer. Having rejected innate ideas he could have no use for therationalist answer. It is his attitude to the phenomenalist answer that is interesting.

Though Hume accepts Berkely's refutation of "the philosophical system" asunintelligible, and reinforces his arguments in a masterful manner in his section "Onthe Modern Philosophy", he rejects Berkely's phenomenalist solution of the problem.

Why does Hume reject this view, the view of a fellow empiricist, whose philosophy isbased on much the same empiricist account of meaning as his own, and on an accountof abstract ideas which he hails as a momentous discovery; a view apparently somuch in keeping with his own general principles, and not in its essentials incompatiblewith his views on the self, or with his official views on our reasons for belief in God asthe artificer of nature?

The clue is to be found in Hume's statement in a footnote to para. 122 of the Enquiry:"That all his (sc. Berkely's) arguments, though otherwise intended are, in reality,merely sceptical, appears from this, that they admit of no answer and produce noconviction. Their only effect is to cause that momentary amazement and irresolutionand confusion, which is the result of scepticism".

He does not agree then that Berkely's view is in accordance with common sense; thevulgar conviction of the permanent existence of the very shapes, colours, etc. weperceive cannot be corrected, as Berkely thought; we do not "really mean" permanentpossibilities of sensation, and we cannot school ourselves to do so. What Berkely istrying to do, Hume thinks, is to destroy a natural conviction, because it is not clearlyintelligible or demonstrable by reason, and to substitute for it a different convictionwhich is. He is trying to prove that

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there are no material objects in the ordinary sense of the word. This is a pointlessenterprise, and bound to fail.

We cannot, Hume thinks, throw off the natural conviction, however confused it maybe, however contradictory to other natural convictions; all that we can do asphilosophers is to examine the nature and causes of this natural conviction. He says,"Nature has not left this (sc. assent to the principle concerning the existence of body)to his (sc. man's) choice, and has doubtless esteemed it an affair of too greatimportance to be trusted to our uncertain reasonings and speculations. We may wellask, what causes induce us to believe in the existence of body? but it is in vain to

ask, whether there be body or not? That is a point we must take for granted in all ourreasonings"

(Treatise Book I, Part IV, Sect. II, pp. 182-83).

I wish to maintain three things. First, that Hume was right in maintaining thatBerkely's solution was impossibly paradoxical. Secondly, that Hume's ownpsychological account of the causes which induce us to believe in the existence ofbodies is unconvincing. Thirdly, that he nevertheless puts his finger on certain featuresof those impressions which we take to be impressions of external objects, which arejust the features which we in fact use as criteria for distinguishing the external orphysical from the internal or mental 1 ; that these features, which Hume calls"constancy" and "coherence", were not noticed by Berkely, and that if he had noticedthem he could have made his phenomenalist solution less paradoxical, though still notwholly satisfactory.

2. Hume's "solution"

Hume first says that neither the senses nor reason can produce our belief in thedistinct and continued existence of bodies.

The impressions of sense are interrupted, and do not show us either real objectsdistinct from their sensible appearances, or sensible objects distinct from the self thatperceives them. They simply show us themselves as they are. Moreover, the sensesreveal no difference of status between colour, shape, hardness, sound, smell, pleasureand pain, and the emotions; they are all originally on the same footing. Yet for somereason we attribute a distinct existence to some of these and not to

____________________1Sometimes it is used to distinguish, within the "mental", the "conscious" from the"unconscious".

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others, and opinions vary as to where to draw the line; particularly with regard tocolour, for instance.

As to reason, it is not in fact used to arrive at this conviction. It is not by thearguments which any philosophers may produce that "children, peasants and thegreatest part of mankind are induced to attribute objects to some impressions, anddeny them to others". Nor can reason possibly be used successfully to justify thisconviction. If we do not distinguish between impressions and objects there is no placefor inference from one to the other. If we do distinguish them, we cannot infer fromthe existence of an impression to the existence of an object, since we only observe theimpressions, never the objects, and consequently cannot observe any constantconjunctions between impressions and objects, the only possible foundation for aninference from the one to the other (p. 204 ).

Hume then concludes that since neither sense nor reason persuades us of the distinctand continued existence of body, it must be imagination. Some features of certain of

our impressions must work on the imagination to produce this result, since we do notattribute distinct existence to all our impressions.

What are these features? Not, as Berkely had suggested, involuntariness or superiorforce or violence. For these are shared by impressions of pain and pleasure and ourpassions and affections, which we regard as purely subjective. It is two features,which he calls constancy and coherence.

Impressions of "unchanging objects", such a mountains, houses and trees areconstant. "They have always appeared to me in the same order; and when I lose sightof them by shutting my eyes or turning my head, I soon after find them return on mewithout the least alteration".

Where objects to which we attribute an external existence change, they exhibit whathe calls coherence. This does not merely mean that they change in a regular manner;but that they change in the same manner whether I keep my eye on them or not."When I return to my chamber after an hour's absence I find not my fire in the samesituation in which I left it; but then I am accustomed, in other instances, to see a likealteration produced in a like time, whether I am present or absent, near or remote"(p. 189 ).

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This coherence is different from the regularity found in "those internal impressions,which we regard as fleeting and perishing". "Our passions are found by experience tohave a mutual connexion with and dependence on each other; but on no occasion is itnecessary to suppose that they have existed and operated, when they were notperceived, in order to preserve the same dependence and connexion of which we havehad experience. 1 . . . External objects on the contrary require a continued existence,or otherwise lose, in a great measure, the regularity of their operation" (p. 190 ). Thisdifference Berkely failed to notice.

It is important to be quite clear just what this feature of certain experiences whichHume calls "coherence" is. If I sit and watch my fire, I get a series of visualimpressions whose size and brightness diminishes in a certain manner at a certainsensible rate. If I sit and watch the clock I get a continuous series of visualimpressions of the hands in successive positions which follow on one another at acertain sensible rate. If I arrange things so that I can see both at once, I find the twoseries of impressions always keep in step with one another; the fire dies down acertain amount while the clock's hands move from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. I further find thatif I look at the clock and the fire alternately or at invervals however chosen, therelations between the occasional impressions of the clock and the fire are just thesame as those between similar impressions which formed parts of the two continuousseries, which I got when I observed both continuously.

Let us represent the series of impressions I call the fire by capital letters, and those Icall the clock by small letters. Then when I observe both continuously I get

(I) A B C D E F, etc.a b c d e f, etc.

When my observations are interrupted I get series of the following kinds

(II) A . . D . Fa . . d . f

____________________1This is exactly what Freud has since found it necessary to suppose.

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or

(III) . B . . E .a . c . e f

or

(IV) A . . . . F. b . . . f

and so on.

I never get

(V) A F . . C Ba f . . c b

or

(VI) B C . A . Ea . b . f e

To use, with modification, a terminology introduced by `Professor Price in "Hume'sTheory of the External World", the order of each series and the correlation of the twoare "gap-indifferent", that is independent of the size and distribution of the gaps.Whether they are also independent of the kind of other impressions which fill the gaps,I shall consider later.

Now according to Hume, the uniformity of the uninterrupted series (I), and theirconstant correlation leads me to expect that fires will always die down in the samemanner and keep step with the progress of the hands of the clock. But the frequentand often lengthy gaps in the interrupted series (II), (III), (IV) destroy this regularity,and give rise to an opposite expectation that they won't. This uneasiness orcontradiction is resolved by an expedient suggested by the gap-indifference of theorder and correlation of the two series; I suppose that the gaps are only apparent, andthat the missing members really occurred, but were not perceived by me. With thegaps thus filled in series (II), (III), (IV) become the same as series (I).

But Hume cannot rest content with this explanation; it represents my mentalprocesses as being much more selfconscious and rational than they in fact are inordinary sense perception. Moreover, it is not in accordance with his account of factual

beliefs as due to mental habits set up by experienced regularity. According to thataccount we should simply expect just that degree and kind of regularity which we infact find in our actual impressions. But here we seem to be demanding a morecomplete regularity than we in fact find, and introducing

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a hypothesis or supposition to ensure it. "It is impossible", he says, "that any habitshould ever exceed that degree of regularity" which we find in our impressions (p. 191).

He is consequently driven to give a rather lame psychological account of what makesus form this supposition (p. 192). "The imagination, when set into any train ofthinking, is apt to continue, even when its object fails it, and, like a galley put inmotion by the oars, carries on its course without any new impulse". Consequently, "asthe mind is once in a train of observing a uniformity among objects, it naturallycontinues till it renders the uniformity as complete as possible. The simple suppositionof their continued existence suffices for this purpose, and gives us a notion of a muchgreater regularity among objects, than what they have when we look no further thanour senses".

Hume, however, does not think even this principle strong enough to support "so vastan edifice" as our conception of the material world. To reinforce it, he producesanother and equally unconvincing psychological explanation based on the influence of"constancy", which he regards as stronger and more fundamental.

The close resemblance of our interrupted impressions of mountains, houses, the sea,etc., makes us forget the interruptions and ascribe an identity to them. We mistake aninterrupted series of resembling impressions for a single continuous impression, andform a habit of regarding them as such. Then, when our attention is drawn to theinterruptions we see this to be contrary to their supposed identity. Again we feel aconflict in our minds and resolve it by the supposition of continuous unobservedexistence, which supposition acquires force and vivacity from the actual impressionswe get and our original tendency to regard them as identical, and so becomes a belief(p. 193 ).

This, according to Hume, is the nature, and these are the causes, of our commonsenseconviction of the continued and distinct existence of bodies. It is an imaginativesupposition of unperceived impressions, unseen colours and shapes, unfelt textures,pressures and temperatures, unheard sounds, and so on. The supposition is suggestedby the "constancy" and

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"coherence" of some impressions and converted into a belief by its association withthose impressions.

This conviction, though natural and indestructible, he goes on to say, is on reflectionunsatisfactory to our reason; but not, as Berkely had said, because the notion of an

"unperceived perception" is self-contradictory. For according to Hume, the mind isnothing but a bundle of perceptions, and it is, therefore, quite conceivable thatindividual perceptions should exist outside the bundle. Being perceived simply meansbeing in the bundle; such perceptions would, therefore, be unperceived (p. 200 ). Theconviction is unsatisfactory because the inductive generalisations which we proceed tomake, on the assumption of the continued and distinct existence of bodies, includewellsupported beliefs in the dependence of all our perceptions "on our organs and thedisposition of our nerves and animal spirits". Such experiments as double-vision,perspectival distortion, illusions due to disease, and so on, show that "our senseperceptions are not possessed of any distinct and independent existence". Theprogress of our beliefs about the material world thus turns round and, in its laterdevelopments, destroys its own foundations.

What Hume is here drawing attention to is the selfcontradictoriness of the position ofthe simple-minded physiologist who says that his observations by his senses of humansense organs and human reports of sense-experience, prove that all our sense-experiences are subjective, mere appearances due to physical causes. Such aphysiologist plainly cuts off the branch he is sitting on.

But, says Hume, our natural conviction of the independent existence of bodies is toostrong to be given up, even though it leads to self-contradictory consequences. Plainmen just ignore the difficulty. Scientists seek to remove the contradiction by adopting"the philosophical system". They "distinguish between perceptions and objects, ofwhich the former are supposed to be interrupted and perishing, and different at everydifferent return, the latter to be uninterrupted, and to preserve a continued existenceand identity".

This system, which owes all its plausibility to the strength of the vulgar conviction ofthe permanent and independent existence of bodies, is incomprehensible, as shown inthe

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section "Of the Modern Philosophy". It necessitates stripping matter of all its sensiblequalities, since these are dependent on subjective conditions and vary with them.When these are taken away matter consists of mere shape, size and motion, withnothing left that moves or occupies space, and space itself without colour ortemperature an inconceivable abstraction. "Impenetrability" does not help; this notioninvolves two bodies at least, each excluding the other from the space it occupies. Butthis cannot be conceived, unless each body can be conceived separately; and withoutsensible qualities they cannot be so conceived; they are mere nonentities, and "twononentities cannot exclude each other from their places" (p. 219).

Hume concludes (p. 221) "Thus there is a direct and total opposition betwixt ourreason and our senses; or more properly speaking, betwixt those conclusions we formfrom cause and effect, and those that persuade us of the continued and independentexistence of body. When we reason from cause and effect, we conclude that neithercolour, sound, taste, nor smell have a continued and independent existence. When weexclude these sensible qualities, there remains nothing in the universe which has suchan existence".

3. Criticism of Hume's "solution"

This is a most unsatisfactory conclusion, and it is difficult to regard it with thecomplacency which Hume professes to achieve. It is worse than the Berkeleianparadox. Let us therefore examine Hume's account of our belief in material thingsfrom the phenomenalist point of view, and see if a solution can be suggested which isless paradoxical than Berkely's, and less defeatist than Hume's.

Now it seems to me that "constancy" and "coherence" are just the features ofexperiences which we accept as criteria for regarding them as appearances ofindependently existing objects. Constancy, I suggest, is simply a special case ofcoherence. Series of impressions of mountains and seas, however interrupted,preserve the same gap-indifferent correlations with one another and with other series;they also

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have the peculiarity that the differences between the members of each such series areslight. 1

But it also seems to me true that the independent existence of certain objects issomething we learn by experience, not an ingenious supposition we devise to explaincertain contradictions. A child learns that its mother, its cot, its toys are permanentand independent objects by discovering constant correlations in its experience. It doesnot first observe these correlations and then think of a supposition to explain them. Isuggest that what we so learn is to make and apply a number of generalisations fromexperience. It is the way we symbolise these conclusions in the imagination and theway we find it convenient to express them in language which has given rise to thephilosophical difficulties.

Let us take Hume's instance of the fire. My series of impressions of it is eithercontinuous and of a certain kind, or interrupted. When interrupted it may beinterrupted in various ways. The gaps may have various different kinds of filling andvarious sensible contexts.

It may be interrupted by the experiences I call closing my eyes or turning my head, orwalking out of the room; or by "something getting between me and it", i.e., by someopaque visual impression of lesser visual depth occupying the same position in myvisual field. With regard to gaps so occasioned and so filled the series is gap-indifferent both in its order and its correlations with other series; let us call such gaps"phenomenal gaps".

On the other hand, the series may be interrupted by experiences such as I callsomebody throwing a bucket of water on the fire, my wife removing it bodily in a coal-scuttle to the kitchen stove, or, in the case of an electric fire, somebody turning offthe switch. With regard to such interruptions, the series is not gap-indifferent. Whenthe fire is relit the correlations with the warmth of the room, the crackling sounds, andthe clock are different from what they would have been if the

____________________1

"Constant" series have a special and fundamental importance, but it is not whatHume thought. It is that they provide us with fixed landmarks which we take asframes of reference for the mapping out of objects in physical space. Cf. A. J. Ayer,"Foundations of Empirical Knowledge" ch. V, Sect. 23.

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interruption had not occurred. Let us call such gaps "substantial gaps". 1

Exactly the same distinction applies to those impressions which Hume calls "constant".The series of my impressions of the house across the road is gap-indifferent withregard to gaps caused by my looking away or leaving the neighbourhood. It is notgap-indifferent with regard to gaps caused by bombs, earthquakes, etc. That thisdistinction is the operative one in both "constancy" and "coherence" is implied byHume's own words. "When I lose sight of them (sc. the mountains, houses and trees)by shutting my eyes or turning my head, I soon after find them return upon mewithout the least alteration". Of the "coherence" of the fire he says "I am accustomed. . . to see a like alteration produced in a like time, whether I am present or absent,near or remote'.

Now after I have learned from observation what sort of experiences are usuallyassociated with gaps of these two kinds I am surely entitled, by a straight inductiveinference, when a phenomenal gap occurs, to infer that it would not have occurred, ifthe gap-making experience had not occurred, provided no other gap-makingexperience occurred instead. I look away, and no longer see the fire. If I had notlooked away, experience teaches, I should still be seeing the fire provided no one hadswitched it off. If I had not turned my gaze from the clock to the fire, provided theclock had not stopped, I should still be seeing the hands of the clock slowly movingon. So I come to think of the missing members of these series as experiences I wouldhave had, if my experience had been in certain ways different from what it in factwas. They are unfulfilled possibilities.

Now, in most cases, it is important to distinguish between what actually happened andwhat might have happened, or would have happened if something had been different.It is important to distinguish between the opportunity that was taken and theopportunity that was missed, the bet that was won and the bet that was lost, thedisaster that occurred and the disaster that was avoided. Nevertheless, it is a familiarfact that we often forget to do so; we find ourselves planning in our

____________________1This term is not intended to carry any metaphysical implications about "substance"in Locke's sense.

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imagination the spending of the sum we would have had if our horse had won, the lifewe would have led if we had obtained the appointment we lost. It is easy to live indreams of what might have been. And it is dangerous.

Let us now enquire why we tend to do this, apart from the influence of wishes andfears. Suppose the horse I backed really won. I represent in my imagination whathappened on the course; the colours flashing past the post, with mine in front, thecheering crowds, my horse being led in, the bookmaker handing the money to thefriend who made the bet for me. Now suppose the horse lost. I represent in myimagination what would have happened if he had won; exactly the same picture.

The imagination can depict no difference between possibilities, whether unfulfilled orundecided, and actualities. In cases where the distinction is important we mark it by adifference in verbal symbols. This picture we remind ourselves, if we are wise, is "whatwould have happened"; that picture is "what actually happened".

Now in the case of a "substantial gap" in a series such as we have been considering, itis important to remember that the missing members are mere unfulfilled possibilities.The fire, which I would have seen if it had not been extinguished, is no more use fordrying clothes than the money, which I would have won if I had not lost my bet, is forbuying champagne. But in the case of a "phenomenal gap" it is rarely of anyimportance at all. Whether I saw the fire, or whether I would have seen it had Ilooked, the room grows warm, the clothes dry, the crackling sounds occur, and laterimpressions of the fire, if they occur, will be smaller and less bright. There is no needin this case to distinguish between the impressions I would have had, and those Iactually had. It is rarely of any practical importance. So I call them both indifferently"the fire", and in any case must represent them in my imagination by the samepicture.

No wonder that a distinction that is not usually marked in thought by a difference interminology, and cannot be marked by a difference in imagery, comes to be forgotten.Whether we see the fire, or whether we believe we would have seen it if we hadlooked, we say "there is a fire", "the fire warms the

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room". In this sense there is a fire whether we see it or not, i.e., the phrase "There isa fire" is a true and proper description of the state of affairs alike in the case wherewe have the senseimpressions and in the case where we have not, but could have hadthem.

Thus we come to think of "the fire" as the name of an object that exists whether weare aware of it or not, and of which the image, which represents either an actual or apossible view of a fire indifferently, is a picture. We still cling to this opinion, evenwhen for some special reason we ask ourselves whether we did actually have thesense impression or not. And as the answer to this question is often that we did not,we come to think of the impression and the fire as two distinct entities, either ofwhich may exist without the other, in the same sense of the word "exist".

We can now see just why we attribute a distinct and continued existence to some ofour impressions and not to others.

The pain which I feel whenever I put my hand too close to the fire is a "permanentpossibility of sensation", just as much as the shape and colour I see whenever I lookat the fire. But the gaps in the series of the pains are not genuine "phenomenal gaps".

Although the conditions in which they occur are similar to those in which phenomenalgaps occur (i.e., they depend on what I call movements of my body), the effects arevery different. Whether I jump and scream depends on whether I actually feel thepain or not; nothing depends merely on whether I would feel the pain if I put myhand in the fire.

This point was not noticed by Berkeley, and has been ignored by many otherphenomenalists. Hume puts it quite clearly in his statement, "Whenever we infer thecontinued existence of the objects of sense from their coherence, it is in order tobestow on the objects a greater regularity than what is observed in our mereperceptions" (p. 191).

The distinction of primary and secondary qualities is merely an extension of the sameprinciple. We find that it is not on the colour or warmth of the obtainable impressionsthat other possibilities of sensation depend, but on their shape, size and position. It isnot, therefore, necessary to attribute

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distinct and continued existence to colour and warmth. Moreover, it is not on the"apparent" sizes and shapes that the most precise consequences depend, but on themeasured sizes and shapes; these, therefore, alone are "real".

Now this account which I have given is, I think, still the same in essence asBerkeley's, despite the amendment I have made. "There is a fire" describes either thecase in which I see the fire or the case in which I could have seen it (had I looked)but do not. What is common to both these cases is that the sense-impressions areobtainable in certain ways, whether they are actually obtained or not. A material thingis a kind of permanent possibility of sense experiences, which may or may not befulfilled.

Hume was right in thinking that there are natural impediments to accepting thisaccount. And I have tried to show what one of them is; it lies in the way we symbolisethese possibilities in the imagination and in language. But I, for one, do not find thisimpediment insuperable, once I have understood its nature. There are, however, moreserious impediments, for instance the following. 1 Not only is it conceivable thatmaterial things might have existed with no minds to perceive them, but geologiststend to say they once did. They describe such things as a land-bridge between Europeand America before there was life on the planet. The Bible tells us that God createdthe material world before the animals and men. What, on the phenomenalist view, isthe meaning of such assertions? It can only be that had there been observers, theywould have enjoyed such and such impressions. The geologist's land-bridge evaporatesinto a mere unfulfilled possibility of certain experiences having occurred at a timewhen nothing existed, for all they tell us, to make them occur.

This was too violent a paradox for even Berkeley to accept, and he took refuge in thefollowing account of the Creation (Dialogue III between Hylas and Philonous): Allpossible worlds existed from all eternity in the mind of God. When He created thisworld He decreed the order in which ideas should be obtainable by finite spirits; andthough we are told that

____________________1This objection is developed by Mr. I. Berlin in an article in mind N.S., July, 1950.

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He had not yet created man, we are not told that He had not yet created angels.

It would seem then that unless geologists are logically committed to a belief in angels,the phenomenalist solution cannot be accepted. The phenomenalist says thatsensations are related to beliefs about material things as observed instences are toinductive generalisations and predictions. The rationalist says they are related aspremisses to deductive conclusion. Both are mistaken. The relation in question is of adifferent and probably peculiar type. Hume's merit is that he saw that this was so,though he failed to give a satisfactory account of the relation.

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CHAPTER IXMINDS(Treatise Book I, Part IV, Sects. V and VI)I. Outline of Hume's view

THE question of mind, Hume begins by saying, is not "perplexed with any suchcontradictions as those we have discovered" in our opinions concerning matter. It is"infinitely obscure", but "what is known concerning it agrees with itself; and what isunknown we must be contented to leave so" (p. 221).

This optimistic claim is withdrawn in the Appendix ( Treatise, Vol. 2, p.317). "On amore strict review of the section concerning personal identity, I find myself involved insuch a labyrinth, that I must confess I neither know how to correct my formeropinions, nor how to render them consistent". He sums up his difficulties by saying (p.319) that there are two principles, neither of which he can give up, but which togethermake it impossible to account for the unity of consciousness. These principles are thatevery distinct perception is a distinct existence, and that the mind never discovers anyreal connexion between distinct existences. I shall discuss these principles later.

Nevertheless Hume could have said that, though his own philosophical system isperplexed with this contradiction concerning the nature of mind, there is no naturaland inevitable contradiction in our commonsense convictions concerning the mind,comparable to that which he found in our convictions about matter. Our notion of apermanent and identical self is indeed (according to him) a figment of the imagination,but it is not a figment that is essential to our survival or incorrigible by philosophicalreflection.

The mind, Hume says in Section V, is not, as philosophers like the Cartesiansmaintain, a simple indivisible immaterial

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(i.e., unextended) substance in which our perceptions inhere. This is the doctrine of"the immateriality of the soul", popular with theologians. Nor, on the other hand, arethe materialists correct, who say that the substance in which our perceptions inhere isa material substance or substances, part of the body. Both views have the same faultof being unintelligible. Neither side can say what they mean by "substance" or"inhesion". But some of the arguments used in this senseless dispute are interesting,Hume finds, and suggest interesting conclusions.

In Section VI, "Of Personal Identity", Hume tells us what, as far as he can see, themind is. It is "nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, whichsucceed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux andmovement" (p. 239). All the identity that it really possesses is a serial identity, thesort of unity which we find, to take Hume's example, in a "republic or commonwealth"(i.e. a political community). In a republic, he explains, the individual citizens areunited by various political, legal, and customary relationships, and their descendants,succeeding to these relationships with or without modifying them, continue theexistence of that same republic. And as the same republic may not only change itscitizens, but also its laws and constitutions, so may the same person "vary hischaracter and disposition, as well as his impressions and ideas, without losing hisidentity" (p. 247).

In addition to this real serial identity, we indulge in the fiction of something identicalin what Hume considers the strict and proper sense of the word, something permanentand unchanging. We do this because we have a natural tendency to confuse a seriesof related and similar objects with a single unchanging object; for instance, we oftencall an interrupted series of distinct but similar noises a single noise (p. 244).Similarly, we call the series of different perceptions, interrupted as it is by sleep, asingle self. Then, when we are forced to take notice of the interruptions, but still clingto our habit of regarding ourselves as single permanent objects, we get over theconflict by feigning the existence of something distinct from all our perceptions, the"soul" or "self" which has them, and which is supposed to remain one and the samethrough all

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its different perceptions, and even when no perceptions are occurring (p. 241).

There is, Hume says, no shadow of empirical evidence for the existence of any suchthing. He, at least, cannot find any impression corresponding to this idea, whatevermay be the case with "some metaphysicians" (p. 239).

Such in outline are Hume's views, inadequate as he himself confesses them to be ontheir positive side. Let us consider first in more detail his negative contention that thesoul is not a simple indivisible unextended substance in which our perceptions inhere.

2. The errors of metaphysicians

On the topic of substance (Part I, Section VI; Part IV, Section V) Hume is brief andpositive. Show me, he says, the impression from which the idea of substance isderived. The impressions of sense are all impressions of sensible qualities, colour,shape, sound, taste, smell, etc. None of these is a substance. The impressions ofreflection "resolve themselves into our passions and emotions" (p. 24 ). These are notsubstances. The substance is supposed to be something which has colour, shape, etc.,or something which is the subject of the passion or emotion. No such thing can befound.

Hume probably thought that he could afford to be brief in his rejections of the idea ofsubstance in view of what Locke and Berkeley had said of it.

Locke (Essay Concerning the Human Understanding, Book II, ch. 23), attempting toexpound the origin of the idea, had exposed it as a confused and relative idea ofsomething supposed (not found by experience) as a support of observable qualities;an idea of "something", not in the case of some further-specifiable kind of entity, butjust "something, I know not what".

Berkeley, both in the Principles of Human Knowledge, and in the first of the "ThreeDialogues of Hylas and Philonous", had shown that this idea of a mere "something"was the mere abstract idea of "quiddity" or "existence" considered apart from anyspecifiable manner of existence, the most vicious of all vicious abstractions, the barecontradictory of the idea of "nothing".

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He had also, in the first dialogue, shown that it could not even claim to be intelligibleas a "relative" idea, because no meaning could be assigned to the words, such as"support" and "inherence", used for the relation in which substance was supposed tostand to the perceivable qualities. These terms are plainly metaphorically used, hesays, and what they are supposed to indicate cannot be said to resemble in anyspecifiable way the relations they stand for when used literally. Qualities would not fallto the ground if they had no substance to "support" them.

What was intended by the use of the term "support", was that somehow the qualitiescould not exist without the substance to exist in. But in what sense could they exist"in" it? Not in the spatial sense of "in", for size, extension itself, is supposed to be oneof the qualities requiring a substance to support it; and, as substance would need tohave size before anything could be "in" it, it would have to be extended (i.e., supportextension) in order to support extension, which leads to a vicious regress.

But Berkeley had directed his attack solely against the idea of corporeal substance.Spiritual substance he thought was not liable to these objections. "Ideas" require asubstance to be "in"; that substance must be something that exists. But here we cansay what we mean by all these terms; "What is a spirit, show me an instance of it?""You are one yourself", Berkeley would answer, "you know spirit by being it". "In whatsense do I exist?" "You act, will and perceive, your esse is vel percipere vel agere"."In what sense are my perceptions 'in' me?" "Simply in the sense that you perceive

them, and you know what perceiving is, simply by undergoing it". "In what way is myexistence necessary to that of my perceptions?" "Their esse is percipi; there is anodour, it is smelt, there is a colour it is seen, there is a noise, it is heard. Thesuggestion of unheard sounds, unsmelt smells, etc., is nonsensical".

Hume clearly does not accept Berkeley's account of spiritual substance, though hedoes not consider Berkeley's views by name, or even seem to have Berkeleyprincipally in mind. We are not, says Hume, aware of ourselves; only of ourperceptions. That a perception is perceived, means simply that it is a member of thebundle. A percipient mind is not necessary

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to the existence of a perception; every perception is a distinct existence in its ownright, and nothing is necessary to its existence. If the definition of a substance be"something which may exist by itself", every distinct perception is a substance, andnothing else is (pp. 222-23).

Whether we agree with Hume or with Berkeley, we must, I think, censure Hume forfailing to mention and discuss the answers which Berkeley had suggested to thequestion which Hume asks on p. 222, "What do you mean by substance and inhesion?" Berkeley had offered an interpretation of these words in terms of spirit andperception, an interpretation which can be called "empirical" if we are allowed toinclude in "experience" that inner awareness of our own activity and passivity of whichBerkeley speaks.

We may put the position thus; the terms "substance" and "inhesion", as ordinarilyused by metaphysicians, had been shown to be meaningless. Berkeley maintained thatthey could be given an interpretation in terms of verifiable entities, sc. spirits and theirideas, which would make it true that all qualities exist in a substance, a substancebeing something whose existence does not logically entail the existence of anythingelse. Hume denied that this was so.

Now it is clear that even if Berkeley is right, the terms "substance" and "inhesion"become quite pointless. The situation described by the sentence "I hear a noise" isfamiliar; no light at all is thrown on its nature by the suggested alternative expression"The quality of noisiness inheres in a spiritual substance". For "inheres in" now meansby definition "is perceived by", and "spiritual substance" means by definition"something like you".

The theologians who supported the doctrine of the immateriality of the soul plainlymeant to be more informative when they called the soul a simple substance. Theywere suggesting a way of thinking of things, a conceptual scheme, from which certainimportant consequences were supposed to follow.

The sort of view they had in mind may be put as follows: all natural changes consistin rearrangements of existing things; nothing new is created and nothing is destroyedby natural changes. Therefore, natural change can only bring into

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existence or destroy composite things. But if there are composite things, there mustbe simple things of which they are made, and these will be uncreatable andindestructible by natural causes. These simple things are of two kinds: material atoms,and spiritual atoms, or individual souls; each human being consists of an individualsoul animating a composite material body. This soul is therefore a separate individualentity, neither created by the natural process of birth nor destroyed by the naturalprocess of death, or any other natural process.

This conception of the soul, compatible both with the Christian theological system andwith the transmigratory systems of the Pythagoreans and certain oriental religions,found its way into Christian thought through the Greek philosophers. It is radicallyopposed to any Pantheistic doctrine, such as that of Spinoza, according to whom thesoul was not a separate individual substance, but a mere attribute or mode of God,the one and only underlying substance of all things, both mental and material. That iswhy Hume takes such malicious delight in elaborating his complicated argumentum adhominem, to show that the doctrine of the immateriality of the soul really amounts tothe same thing as the doctrine of Spinoza (p. 228 ff.).

Now, whatever truth we may recognise in Berkeley's claim that we are aware ofourselves as percipient and active entities, it is quite certain that we are not aware ofourselves by any sort of inner consciousness as simple indivisible indestructiblesubstances. 1 We can, therefore, consider separately the objections which Humemakes to the doctrine of the simple indivisible substantial soul, and those he makesagainst the claim that we are aware of ourselves as percipient active entities.

Hume's main objection to the theologians is, as we have seen, that the notions ofsubstance and inhesion are unintelligible. The whole question, in what sort ofsubstance do thoughts inhere, is nonsensical. But he cannot forbear to point

____________________1Though Berkeley does say that a spirit is a simple indivisible incorporeal thing, I donot know on what grounds he thought so, or see that any important consequencesfollow from its simplicity, once the analogy with material atoms has beenabandoned.

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out that some of the principal arguments used by the theologians and the materialistsare nonsensical in another respect as well.

The materialists argue that our perceptions of touch and sight, for instance ourperceptions of a table, are extended (p. 228). They have shape and size; indeed, suchperceptions are the foundation of our notions of shape and size. How can an extendedperception inhere in an unextended substance, as the theologians pretend?

The theologians retort that many of our perceptions are unextended, and the ideas ofshape, size and position are simply inapplicable to them. "Can anyone conceive apassion a yard in length, a foot in breadth, and an inch in thickness?" (p. 224). And isit not absurd to suppose "that several passions may be placed in a circular figure, and

that a certain number of smells conjoined with a certain number of sounds, may makea body of twelve cubic inches?" (p. 227). How, the theologians ask, can suchunextended perceptions inhere in an extended substance? How, that is, can thoughtsbe in the brain, or any other part of the body? If the perception inheres in the wholebody, it has the shape of the whole; if it inheres only in a part it will have the shapeand position of the part, and passions, for instance, will have positions relative to oneanother, will be below, above, to the left of, to the right of one another, which isabsurd.

Consideration of these arguments leads Hume to ask the question, what objects canhave size, shape, and position in space? (p. 224). He answers, only perceptions ofsight and touch, from which our "first notion of space and extension is derived solely".Nothing but what is visible or tangible has parts so disposed as to convey the idea ofspace. Smells, tastes, noises do not, properly speaking, have shape, size or position.

It is true, he admits, that we think of the taste of a fig as "in the fig", and of the tasteof an olive as "in the olive". But first, suppose the fig to be at one end of the table andthe olive at the other, say 8 feet apart, does it really make sense to say that the twotastes are 8 feet apart? Secondly, is the taste of the fig in a certain part of the fig?No, the whole fig tastes of fig. Is it then in the whole fig? In that case the taste musthave the shape and size of the fig, which is absurd.

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What happens, says Hume, is that, finding the fig to be the cause of the taste andtheir ideas closely associated in the imagination, we tend to cement the alliance, as itwere, by bestowing on them other relations, among which is conjunction in space,although, strictly speaking, the taste cannot be said to have position in space at all (p.226). Then finding that we cannot clearly conceive the" spatial conjunction of the two(is it in the whole fig or a part of it, etc. ?), we fall into a hopelessly confused way ofthinking, and regard the taste as existing entire in the whole fig and entire in everypart of it, as the scholastics used to say, "totum in toto, et totum in qualibet parte"(p. 227).

Hume concludes, that of many things, it is true to say that they exist, but existnowhere (p. 224).

If this is so, the arguments of both theologians and materialists fall to the ground. Thequestion "how do unextended perceptions exist in the extended brain?" is not moredifficult than the question "how does the taste exist in the fig?" Strictly speaking theperceptions are nowhere, and therefore not in the brain at all; loosely speaking theyare in the brain in the sense that they are caused by and associated in our minds withthe brain, just as the taste is similarly related to the fig.

The question "how can extended perceptions be in an unextended soul?" is equallypointless. Strictly speaking the unextended soul (if there could be such a thing) wouldbe nowhere, and incapable of containing or being otherwise spatially related toanything. Loosely speaking the extended perception could be "contained in" or "partof" the soul, in the same sense as a move in a game of chess is "part of" a plan, or"contained in" it. The move occurs on the board, the plan is nowhere; but they are sorelated that such talk is customary and significant.

Before leaving Hume's section "On the Immateriality of the Soul" we must considerone other interesting passage, in which he discusses the action of body on mind (p.234).

He first sets out in forcible terms an argument whose "seeming evidence" "few havebeen able to withstand": bodies, however divided, conjoined, or moved, remainbodies; no conceivable movements or impacts of bodies constitute a thought, which issomething of a totally different kind; and as

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these "shocks, variations and mixtures are the only changes of which matter issusceptible . . . it is concluded to be impossible that thought can ever be caused bymatter".

Starting from his own view of causation, Hume makes short work of this argument. Itis simply a complaint that there is no discoverable connexion between any movementof matter and the occurrence of a thought. But there is no discoverable connexionsays Hume, between any cause and its effect; for instance there is no discoverableconnexion between the relative positions and sizes of the earth and the sun and theresulting movement in accordance with the laws of gravity. Size and distance are justsize and distance, and the idea of motion cannot be extracted from them, any morethan the idea of thought can.

Hume reduces his argument to a dilemma. Either you say there can be no causalrelation where there is no discoverable connexion, in which case you end up bydenying all causation; or you admit causation wherever there is constant conjunction,in which case you must admit that our perceptions are often due to material causes.We must, he says, separate the question of the union of soul and body and thesubstance of the soul, from that concerning the cause of its thought; "confiningourselves to the latter question, we find, by comparing their ideas, that thought andmotion are different from each other, and by experience that they are constantlyunited".

It seems to me impossible to improve on this terse and lucid statement of theposition. But it is possible to suggest certain better reasons which philosophers andscientists have for being dissatisfied with any account of the interaction of mind andbody they can give; better reasons, that is, than the argument which Hume refutes.

There is a perfectly good sense in which it is true to say that we cannot explain how,for instance, certain physical changes in the brain cause a sensation of yellow,although it is an indubitable fact that they do. It is true in the sense that we cannotderive this special correlation from any general law of nature. That specific change inthe brain might have been. constantly conjoined with the sensation of red instead ofyellow, without any law of physics or psychology, or any other systematic science,being broken; equally it might have been

K

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constantly conjoined with a tactual sensation or with no sensation at all. Science canoffer no "theoretical explanation" of psycho-physical correlations.3. Self-consciousness and personal identityWe must now turn to Hume's section "Of Personal Identity".I shall suggest first thatthe self is not, as Hume says, "nothing but a bundle or collection of differentperceptions"; and that even if it were what he intends to convey by that phrase andthe sentence in which it occurs (p. 239), it could possess "identity" in a perfectlyproper and usual sense of the term, without any fiction of the imagination beingrequired.Secondly, I shall suggest that there are certain important mistakes in thereasoning which lead him to adopt this view, mistakes which land him in theembarrassment he complains of in the Appendix to Vol. 2 of the Treatise.If we look atthe opening paragraphs of the section we see that it is not philosophers such asDescartes or the metaphysical theologians, considered in his section "On theImmateriality of the Soul", that Hume is now opposing. It is philosophers who believein the existence of self on empirical grounds, who claim to feel its existence, itscontinuance and its perfect identity and simplicity (p. 238).In the first two paragraphsHume offers five arguments against the existence of the self.I. (I) We have no impression of self.II. (II) We could not have such an impression; the suggestion is self-contradictory.III. (III) If the self is permanent and identical, the impression from which it is derived

must abide without interruption or alteration throughout our lives. No impressiondoes this.

IV. (IV) All my perceptions are distinct and separable existencies, and require nothingto support their existence. How then can they belong to a self, how can they beconnected with it?

V. (V) The occurrence of my particular perceptions is all that is necessary for, and issufficient for my

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existence. So long as they occur, I am; when they cease, I am not. Therefore Iam they.

I suggest that arguments (I) and (II) rest on the same mistake. The trouble is in theword "impression". As we saw when considering Part I of the Treatise, "impression",partly owing to the history of the word, inevitably suggested "sensation" (whetherexternal or internal) and "idea" inevitably suggested "image". Now it is certainly truethat the self is not known to us in a sensation of any sort, in the same way as acolour, a sound, or an emotion is. Equally certainly we can form no image of the self.But, as we saw, when Hume asserts that all our ideas are derived from impressions,the principle he has in mind is not really one about sensations and images. It is theprinciple that we can think about nothing but what is given us in experience to thinkabout.

I suggest that there is much plausibility in Berkeley's view, that we have anexperience which we call the self or soul, an experience different in kind from ourother experiences, more internal than the most personal emotion we feel, and notneeding or able to be represented in thought by an image, since in all thinking it is

actually present. For these reasons he calls it a "notion" and not an "idea". If weaccept this suggestion, the contradiction complained of in Hume's argument (II)vanishes. It would be, indeed, a contradiction to have an impression of that which isno impression but "to which all our impressions have a reference". But it is not self-contradictory to suppose that that which has all other experiences has also a specialinner experience of its own existence.

Argument (III) rests on a mistake about the proper meaning of the terms "identity","the same". According to Hume our idea of identity is the idea of something thatcontinues without interruption and without change; when we attribute identity tochanging objects such as plants, animals and machines, we speak loosely and supportour inaccurate use of words by a fiction of the imagination, a fiction of someunobservable unchanging thing. I suggest that the fundamental idea of identity issimply that of the unity of an aggregate. How the members of the aggregate must berelated to one another in order to form one aggregate depends on the sort ofaggregate in question. The

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members of Parliament form one Parliament, but several parties.

A common kind of identity is that of the unity of a series. It remains one series solong as each member is related to its predecessors in a certain characteristic way. Theseries of whole numbers is one series because each member is greater by one thanthe preceding member. There is thus no reason why the self should not change, andeven suffer interruptions in its existence, and yet preserve its identity; just as a playis the same play despite the interval between the acts and the change of scene. And aplay is one of the things to which Hume compares the mind (pp. 239-40). We do notfeign any metaphysical entity when we think of a play as being the same playresumed after an interval, or with a change of actors and scenery. It is thesubstantiality of the self, not its identity, which requires a fiction, if anything does.

The fourth and fifth arguments are the most interesting and the most difficult tounderstand. Argument (IV) (p. 239), appears to say that since our "particularperceptions" are different, distinguishable, separable from each other, capable of beingconsidered separately, and have no need of anything to support their existence, theycannot belong to a self or be connected with it. This is a curious argument, and it isdifficult to see just what does follow from the welter of premisses offered to us.

As far as I can see, the premisses are really two in number.

(a) Every perception is logically independent of every other perception; i.e., it involvesno contradiction to suppose of any given perception that it occurred, but that theother perceptions that preceded, accompanied and followed it were other than they infact were, or even that no other perceptions preceded, accompanied or followed it.This is the central thesis of Hume's denial of objective necessary connexion.

(b) Every perception is logically independent of the existence of any other entitywhatsoever. The occurrence of a perception does not logically entail the existence ofany other thing, e.g., a mind to which it belongs, or an external substance that causesit.

Now I cannot see that the non-existence of the self follows from either or both ofthese premisses, even if they are true.

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I shall discuss later whether they are true or not. Even if it is not logically necessarythat every perception should belong to a connected whole of experience or to a self,yet some perceptions may, in fact, be related to one another in a certain peculiarway, and also related to a self; and it does seem to be an empirical fact that when Iam aware of two perceptions, say a loud noise and a feeling of fear, and comparethem or consider them together, as Hume constantly speaks of himself as doing, thereis a relation between these two perceptions which does not exist between a loud noiseheard by me and a feeling of fear felt by you. The former pair are what psychologistscall "co-presented"; they are united in one consciousness, whatever that may mean.In short, the argument is a non sequitur, and the conclusion is false as a matter ofempirical fact.

Yet it was just this argument that caused Hume such trouble in the Appendix to theTreatise. If perceptions are distinct existences, and the mind never perceives aconnexion between distinct existences, how, he asks, do they become united in asingle consciousness, as they plainly do?

Now the connexion which Hume maintains we never find between distinct existences islogically necessary connexion. But this is plainly not the sort of connexion we requireto explain the unity of consciousness. For no one supposes that all the perceptions ofa single mind are logically connected like the axioms and theorems of a geometricalsystem; there is, for instance, no logical connexion between having a headache onTuesday and hearing a cuckoo on Thursday. The only question is what relation does infact unite perceptions in one consciousness?

Hume rightly sees that it cannot be similarity, causation, or local or temporalconjunction. All these relations, except local conjunction, of which only someperceptions are susceptible, may hold between the perceptions of different minds asmuch as between the perceptions of a single mind 1 ; and these relations Humeassumed, for no good reason, to be the only alternatives.

They are, I suggest, not the only alternatives; there is an

____________________1I assume here that telepathy does in fact occur.

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empirically given relation which we may call co-presentation, which holds between anytwo or more perceptions which I am in a position to compare with one another; and itlooks very much as if it were an empirical fact that this relation is at least a three-term relation, involving at least two perceptions and something else, the mind towhich they are presented and which is able to compare them. I say only that it looksas if there were this third term, because the admission of it is liable to a difficulty

which is closely connected with Hume's fifth argument.

In argument (V) Hume says first, that he can never at any time catch himself withouta perception; a mind without a perception does not, as a matter of observable fact,ever occur; and secondly, that as a matter of logic a mind without a perception isinconceivable. The cessation of all my perceptions would be as complete anannihilation of myself as I can imagine.

Both these propositions seem to me to be true; and if the second is true, then thethird term I spoke of above is a very curious kind of entity. It is not a perception, butthe existence of perceptions is logically necessary to its existence. I am so persuadedof the fundamental truth of Hume's distinction between logical connexions and factualconjunctions, that I cannot, on reflexion admit the existence of such an entity.

If the self is something distinct from its perceptions, as a house is distinct from itsoccupants, then the perceptions cannot be logically necessary to the existence of theself, any more than the occupants can be logically necessary to the existence of thehouse. If, on the other hand, perceptions are logically necessary to the existence ofthe self, as citizens are logically necessary to the existence of a state, then the self isno more an entity distinct from its perceptions than the state is an entity distinct fromits citizens; it is rather a form of relational pattern in which they are combined.

The conclusion to which we are driven is that the self is not an entity distinct from itsperceptions, but consists of perceptions suitably related. The relations required tounite them are not merely similarity, causation and spatial and temporal conjunction,but also co-presentation. Hume failed to recognise the existence of this relation as anempirical fact,

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and therefore found himself in the difficulty described in the Appendix to the Treatise.

I have now completed my case for two of my suggestions. First, the self is not a merebundle of perceptions; it is at least a very peculiar form of relational unity ofperceptions. Secondly, Hume's arguments rested on three mistakes: (a) the mistakeabout the proper meaning of the term identity; (b) his too narrow view of what couldbe the origin of an idea, due to the misleading implications of the term "impression";(c) the mistake of supposing that logically necessary connexion was the only relationwhich could unite our perceptions in a single consciousness.

It remains to make a case for my third suggestion that even if the self were merely abundle or collection of perceptions related only by the relations of resemblance,causation, succession and simultaneity, it could yet have an identity in a natural andproper sense of that word (although, of course, it would lack the peculiar sort of unitywhich it in fact has). This follows from what I have said about the meaning of"identity". A Humean self could well have exactly the same sort of serial identity whicha play or a republic has; as long as each of its perceptions was related to those thatwent before in the right sort of way it would remain the same self.

Not only is this a possible sense of "personal identity", it is a sense in which theexpression actually tends to be used. In cases where they find a sharp causal and

qualitative discontinuity in the thoughts, emotions, desires and actions associated witha given body, psychologists say there are two persons, or personalities, present, orthat the personality is divided. And they do this even in cases where the relation ofco-presentation still holds between perceptions in one of the personalities andperceptions in the other.

Nevertheless, on reconsidering all that I have said, I feel perplexed and dissatisfied, asHume did when he wrote the Appendix. If the self is only a relational unity ofperceptions, connected by co-presentation and other empirical relations, that innerawareness of our own being, of which Berkeley speaks, remains unaccounted for; andanyway the relation of co-presentation remains somewhat mysterious.

The difficulty has been formulated by someone in a hexa-

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metrical criticism of Hume, "How can a series of conscious states be aware of itself asa series?" But when I consider this hexameter, I see that the difficulty is wrongly put.It is not the series as a whole which is required to be aware of itself. We are not self-conscious all the time. We are self-conscious at certain times. It is some of themembers of the series that must be aware of themselves as members of the series.Just as when a nation is said to be conscious of its own existence as a nation, it isreally the members of the nation, or some of them, who are aware of themselves asmembers of the nation.

But still, what is it for a perception to be aware of itself as a member of that relationalunity of perceptions we call a mind? I do not know the answer to this question.

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PART IIHUME'S ACCOUNT OF MORALITY

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CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY

HUME'S moral philosophy has met with much disfavour among later moralists. It hasbeen complained that he does less than justice to the part played by reason in moral

judgements and in moral conduct; that the "moral sentiment" on which he bases histheory is just one human feeling on a level with the others, and that it fails to accountfor that superior authority and urgency which are characteristic of what we call"conscience"; that in saying that the moral sentiment is actuated always, howeverindirectly, by considerations of pleasure and pain, he ranks himself with the hedonists,whose outlook is fundamentally base and unworthy of the dignity of man, as well asuntrue to the facts; and finally that by founding morality on feeling he makes it arelative and subjective matter, and forfeits all hopes of a universally valid andobjective system of morals.

And yet, if we state the essence of Hume's theory shortly and in common language,what is it? Simply this: first, that by calling an action virtuous or vicious, we meansimply that when we consider it generally and without reference to our own personalinterests we have a feeling of approval or disapproval for it, approval being a feelingof joy and pleasure, disapproval one of uneasiness, pain or disgust; and secondly, thatwhat makes us approve or disapprove actions when so considered is simply theirtendency to promote the happiness or unhappiness (i.e., pleasure or pain) of those,whoever they may be, who are affected by the actions in question, directly orindirectly.

Whatever may be the reactions of moralists of the more elevated type, I venture toassert that this account cannot but recommend itself at first view to commonsense.

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It may be feared, of course, that this account offers too little inducement to bevirtuous, and compares in this respect unfavourably with other views.

If I tell a youth that he is a composite being, containing, beside the natural or animalpart of his make-up, a divine part, which is reason, and that morality consists inadhering to the immutable laws of reason; or, alternatively, if I tell him that the divinepart is love, and that morality consists in the exercise of love, which may be fannedthrough the offices of religion by the breath of God; if I tell him something like this, Iindeed give him a powerful incentive to virtue. But the incentive depends on hisbelieving the factual propositions I assert. And it does not appear that the religiousconvictions of men are more stable than their moral characters.

Similarly, if I tell a youth that morality is simply interest on the long view; thathonesty does not merely happen as a matter of fact to be the best policy, but issimply the name of what is, in the long run, for economic or theological reasons, theagent's own best interest in this world or the next; in this case I again provide apowerful incentive to virtue. But again its power depends on his believing certainpropositions, which he may well come, as a result of experience or other causes, todoubt.

Perhaps it is a safer method to point out just what, as a matter of observable fact,happens in us when we pass moral judgements on the conduct of ourselves andothers, and when we feel shame or satisfaction with our own past behaviour, orscruples and obligations with regard to our future behaviour. Perhaps it is safer todescribe the nature, causes, and effects of the moral sentiment, as observation showsthem to be, and leave it to each individual, so instructed, to choose whether he shall

attach more importance to it than to other sentiments. Let him accept morality, if heaccepts it, for what it can be ascertained to be; and leave speculations about itssupernatural or other origins to be treated as a separate question.

But, at this point, it will be objected that Hume equally asks us to believe certainrather sweeping factual statements, which many will doubt; and as long as they aredoubted his philosophy is not much help in clarifying the nature of the choice betweenvirtue and vice; the only difference is that

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these propositions are psychological propositions, not propositions of theology oreconomics; and psychology is a highly controversial subject.

Now, if we look again at the brief outline I have given of the essence of Hume's theoryof morals, we can see that it may be restated in a way that omits the psychologicalpropositions.

By calling an action virtuous or vicious we mean that when. we consider it generallyand without reference to our own personal interests, we approve or disapprove of it,and that what makes us approve or disapprove of it, when so considered, is simply itstendency to promote the happiness or unhappiness of all who may be in any wayaffected by it.

In this restatement we have left out the assertion that approval and disapproval arefeelings, respectively pleasant and unpleasant, and that happiness and unhappinessconsist in pleasure and pain. It is assumed that we know what approval anddisapproval, happiness and unhappiness are when we meet them in ourselves andothers; and it is asserted that the approval and disapproval which we call "moral" aregeneralised and impersonal attitudes excited by considerations of utility and disutility,production of happiness and unhappiness.

It would appear then that the essence of Hume's theory, purged of its psychologicalelement, consists in a plausible and wholesome philosophical contention; that there isa connexion between the meanings of the terms "moral", "approval" and "disapproval","happiness" and "unhappiness", which makes it nonsense to say that an action ismorally right or wrong, but does not command your disinterested approval ordisapproval on grounds of its tendency to promote the happiness or unhappiness ofthose affected by it.

It must be confessed, indeed, that Hume often, particularly in the Treatise, fails todistinguish the philosophical and psychological elements in his theory, and thereforeuses a great many psychological arguments to support philosophical propositions. Hispsychological accounts of the nature and causes of approval and disapproval,happiness and unhappiness are defective; and on the philosophical side, as we shallsee, his analysis of "reason" is unduly narrow. These defects lend some colour to theobjections mentioned in the first paragraph

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of this chapter. But even taken with these defects his theory, considered as a theory,is extremely coherent and ingenious.

When we turn to the Enquiry we find not only a simpler and less dubious psychology,but also the most convincing praises of virtue. The godless Epicurean of the eighteenthcentury was not less eloquent on this topic than his prototypes of antiquity. Like themhe believed that God is not terrible, that the dead feel nothing and that happiness isattainable by human intelligence and virtue. Like them he put his convictions intopractice in his life and in his death, though fortunately the illness that killed him wasless painful than the gallstones of which Epicurus died.

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CHAPTER II

THE SERVITUDE OF REASON1. Reason alone never influences action (Treatise Book II, Part III,Sect. III; Enquiry Sect. I, and Appendix I).

HUME has seldom caused more scandal to philosophers than when he said that"Reason is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions, and can never pretend toany other office than to serve and obey them" (p. 127), and that, as a consequence ofthis, as well as on other grounds, "it is in vain to pretend that morality is discoveredonly by a deduction of reason" (p. 167).

Had not Socrates said that virtue was knowledge, Plato defined justice as a harmonyof the passions and desires under the direction of reason, and Aristotle, though he hadadmitted that "the understanding itself moves nothing", added that there wassomething called "the practical understanding", consisting in the direction of desire tothat which reason pronounced good, and capable of causing action?

The Stoics had identified virtue and happiness with conformity to reason, and a longline of Christian thinkers had believed in "Natural Law" (in the moral sense of "law"),which they conceived to be in essence rational and intelligible to human reason, andto comprise the fundamental principles of justice. Of this last-named school, Hookerand Locke were eminent and fairly recent examples in Hume's time.

The scandal would have been less had Hume maintained that the non-rational sourceof moral distinctions was in any way supernatural; that it consisted, for instance, inconscience, conceived, as Bishop Butler conceived it, as an intimation from God ofwhere our true obligations and our true happiness lay; or that it was the motive ofChristian Charity, conceived as a motive superior to all others because it was one thatman

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shared with God, and possessed only by the inspiration of the Spirit of God.

But Hume said that, on the contrary, the foundation of moral distinctions was a moral

sentiment, which was perfectly natural in origin, arose as the result of discoverablepsychological processes, and was actuated in part by objects (institutions of propertyand contract) which were of man's own contrivance.

I may add that I find that these contentions of Hume still scandalise many of mypupils.

The first argument which Hume uses is that moral judgements do influence ouractions; sometimes, however rarely, men do things because it is their duty to dothem, and in opposition to their desires. But, Hume says, reason cannot cause orprevent any action, or oppose any passion or desire. Therefore reason cannot be thesource of moral judgements.

Let us examine Hume's case for the practical impotence of reason, given in Book II,Part III, Sect. III.

We must first note that Hume expressly confines the term "reason" to the twobranches of the understanding which he has studied in Book I of the Treatise, viz., thetracing of abstract relations of ideas (demonstrative reasoning) and causal inferencesto matters of fact (reasoning from experience). To apply the term reason to anythingelse is, he says, to speak improperly, although we do often speak thus improperly ofsomething very important, as we shall see later.

Hume first deals briskly and briefly with demonstrative reasoning; he thinks "it scarcewill be asserted" that this species of reasoning "alone is ever the cause of any action.As its proper province is the world of ideas, and as the will always places us in that ofrealities, demonstration and volition seem upon that account to be totally removedfrom one another". He then admits that mathematics, the principal field ofdemonstrative reasoning, has a use in practical affairs, "in almost every art andprofession". But this he says is only because it serves to "direct our judgementconcerning causes and effects".

There seem to be two distinct arguments here, which we must sort out and statedistinctly.

First, when Hume says that the proper province of demon-

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stration is the world of ideas, whereas the will is concerned with realities, I take it heis repeating his valid contention that no matter of fact can be demonstrated a priori.As Descartes had observed, the demonstrations of mathematicians prove onlyhypothetical propositions; e.g., "If any object is triangular, its internal angles will beequal to two right angles". Only experience can tell us that a certain object istriangular. From this it follows that, since action is always concerned with actualobjects, experience as well as deductive reasoning is necessary to produce action.Calculations and deductions cannot help us without data derived from experience. Sofar so good. No rationalistic moralist would attempt to deny this.

Secondly, Hume asserts that even if experience provides's us with the data--say thesums of money I have paid to a certain person, and the goods, with their prices,

which I have received from him--the calculation which demonstrates the differencebetween the two in terms of money is only of practical interest because of the causesand effects of that difference; e.g., the fact that if I do not pay him a sum equal tothe difference he will sue me at law and provide me with no more goods.

This second contention of Hume's will seem to some to be dubious. It might well beasked, is it not precisely the fact that the goods received were worth £10 more than Ihave paid which imposes on me the obligation to pay him £10 Or rather, is not thisdifference just what we mean by a debt of £10, and is not the knowledge of this debtjust what causes me, if I am honest, to pay the man £10?

Hume would reply first, that even if we allow that my calculations reveal a peculiarquality in the situation, viz., my indebtedness, the effect of this discovery on myactions will depend on another and variable factor. The discovery may lead me to paythe debt, or it may lead me to leave the country or otherwise evade my creditors; itwould depend, according to Hume, on how I felt about this quality, i.e., on its effectson me. And second, that the indebtedness itself, as discovered by the Calculations, isnot a moral fact at all. The calculations only reveal a certain numerical proportionbetween the values of the goods received and the sums of money paid; they concludein a proposition of the form x-y = £10. There is no inference

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possible from this to the moral proposition "I ought to pay so and so £10".

It is, indeed, possible to use the term "debt" to describe a situation such as thecalculations reveal; in that case, "I am in debt" only means "I have received morethan I have paid". It does not mean "I ought to pay the difference", any more than itmeans "Well done me; I must hang on to my profit". The moral proposition "Debtsought to be paid" is still to seek.

It is also possible to use the term "debt" to mean "a sum of money which ought to bepaid over". In that case the moral proposition "debts ought to be paid" is a tautology.But the proposition "I am in debt" is no longer the conclusion of my calculations.

The point at issue here is made by Hume in a celebrated passage ( Treatise, Book III,Part 1, Sect. 1, p. 177).

"In every system of morality which I have hitherto met with, I have alwaysremarked, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary way ofreasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes some observationsconcerning human affairs; when of a sudden I am surprised to find thatinstead of the usual copulation of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with noproposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not. Thischangeis imperceptible; but is, however, of the last consequence. For as this ought,or ought not, expresses some new relation or affirmation, it is necessary thatit should be observed and explained; and at the same time, that a reasonshould be given, for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this newrelation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it".

We may state Hume's general position thus: experience tells us what is, and byinductive inference what probably will be, would be, or would have been;demonstrative reasoning traces the connexions between the ideas by which werepresent in our thought what is or what might be. These are the only forms ofreasoning we have. But "ought" and "ought not" do not stand for any such actual orpossible existences, nor yet for ways of representing them in our thought. They,therefore, do not stand for anything discoverable by reason.

We have now largely anticipated Hume's argument to

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prove that empirical reasoning concerning matters of fact cannot by itself move us toaction.

This reasoning he says only discovers the causes and effects of observed orremembered objects. And these discoveries only move us to action if the causes andeffects discovered excite desire or aversion. This they can only do if they hold out aprospect of pleasure or pain. It is, therefore, not the reasoning alone, but the desiresand aversions excited by its conclusions which move us to action. "It can never in theleast concern us to know that such objects are causes and such others effects, if boththe causes and effects be indifferent to us".

We may note that "the prospect of pain or pleasure" is not so important a link in thisargument as Hume supposes. The real point is that neither the rational expectation ofpleasure and pain, or of any other object, can excite us to action, unless we feeldesire or aversion for it. And the step from expecting something to desiring or fearingit is not an inference of reason.

2. The indirect influence of reason on action (Treatise Book II,Part III, Sect. III)

Hume is, however, far from denying that feelings and actions can be in any sensereasonable or unreasonable. A passion, or the action which it produces, can be calledreasonable or unreasonable, "so far as it is accompanied with some judgement oropinion" (p. 127 ). This accompanying judgement may indirectly influence the action intwo ways, he says, either by discovering the existence of an object which arouses apassion, or by discovering the causes of some state of affairs which we desire, andsod showing us how it can be brought about. 1

Thus it is unreasonable to pursue an object, if the evidence goes to show that it doesnot exist; and it is unreasonable to pursue an object by means which experienceshows to be unlikely to bring it about; but, he says, "where a passion is neitherfounded on false suppositions, nor chooses means insufficient for the end, theunderstanding can neither justify it nor condemn it. It is not contrary to reason toprefer the

____________________1In the Enquiry (Sect. I, para. 137) Hume seems to allow that moral decisions maybe influenced by reason in more varied and complicated ways. "In order to pave the

way for such a sentiment, and give a proper discernment of its object, it is oftennecessary . . . that . . . nice distinctions be made, just conclusions drawn, distantcomparisons formed, complicated relations examined and general facts fixed andascertained".

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destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger. It is not contrary toreason for me to choose my total ruin, to prevent the least uneasiness of an Indian,or person wholly unknown to me" (p. 128 ).

Hume's wording in these passages is, possibly by design, such as to cover two distinctkinds of unreasonable action, which, however, he does not explicitly distinguish.

In the first kind, the accompanying judgement or opinion is itself reasonable, but thepassion or action is not influenced by it. For instance, my reason may tell me that acertain pastime I very much enjoyed in youth will no longer give me the samepleasure in middle age, but I may continue to desire that pleasure and pursue it. Morefrequently, it is some combination of passions that are not influenced by the soundjudgements of reason; as when I "will the end but not the means". For instance, Iwish to perform all my duties efficiently and know that I cannot do so unless Irelinquish some of my numerous offices, but I am unwilling to relinquish any of them.

In the second kind the accompanying judgement is itself unreasonable, though thepassions and action may be influenced by it. For instance, wishing to ascertain myspeed in the dark, I stop my car under a street-lamp in order to read myspeedometer. This is the type of case Hume principally seems to have in mind; and itis the former type which Hume is often accused, with some justification, of neglecting.But he could still say that in both cases all that reason does is to make the factualjudgement. The passions and actions are either influenced by the judgement in theways he describes, or they are not influenced at all.

Hume later makes the point, which applies only to the second kind of unreasonablebehaviour, that mistakes of fact "so far from being the source of all immorality . . . arecommonly very innocent, and draw no manner of guilt upon the person who is sounfortunate as to fall into them" ( Book III, Part III, Sect. I, p. 169).

He could also have made the point that in the first kind of unreasonable action, thefailure of the reasonable judgement to modify the action does not of itself make theaction wrong. It depends on what sort of an action it is. It is foolish, but not morallywrong to continue to seek pleasure where I know I will

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not find it. It is wrong as well as foolish to cling to more offices than I can efficientlydischarge.

The common ground of these two points is well brought out by Hume in anotherpassage on p. 169 : "As the very essence of morality is supposed (sc. by therationalists) to consist in an agreement or disagreement to reason, the other

circumstances are entirely arbitrary, and can never bestow on any action the characterof virtuous or vicious, or deprive it of that character". In short, the rationalist cannotaccount for the difference between foolish and morally bad behaviour.

3. The influence of "Reason" improperly so-called (Treatise Book II,Part III, Sect. III)

There is another sense in which passions and actions can be called reasonable orunreasonable, which involves, Hume thinks, a definite misuse of the term "reason",not merely an indirect reference to it.

There are, he says, certain "calm", but often "strong", passions in us, the operation ofwhich feels very like that of reason. These passions have very general objects, arerelatively permanent through life, and act without producing any sensible disturbancein the soul. They are, therefore, confused with reason, and when they oppose themore violent and transitory passions, we say that "reason" is curbing passion andcontrolling our actions.

As instances of these calm passions he gives "benevolence and resentment, the love oflife, and kindness to children; or the general appetite to good and aversion to evil,considered merely as such" (p. 129 ). By good and evil he here means pleasure andpain, as is plain from the opening paragraph of Book II, Part III, Sect. IX "Of thedirect passions".

Now we may agree with Hume that in most cases the operation of such passions isimproperly called "reason", and that there is a tendency to use the word in this sense.But there is a special way in which the calm passions operate, of which Hume hasmuch to say later, in the description of which the term "reason" seems much lessimproper. At present I shall only notice it briefly in anticipation, and refer to a passage(Book III, Part III, Sect. I, p. 279), where he describes the way in which the partialityof our moral judgements is checked,

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and considerations of convenience lead us to adopt a general impartial standpoint, andto regulate our sentiments by general rules.

It is natural, he says, that our feelings of approval and disapproval should be strongerin proportion as we are nearer in place and time to the action, or personally interestedin it, or personally attached to the persons affected by it. But we find that, since thesepersonal factors are constantly changing, and are frequently contrary to those of otherpeople with whom we wish to converse or deal, a most disagreeable and inconvenientconfusion and contradiction arises if we adhere to such partial judgements; thisdiscovery calls into play the calm passion of the dislike of evil, i.e., discomfort, assuch.

Seeking for an alternative standard of judgement, we find that another calm, regularand general passion provides one, that is sympathy, or the general liking for humanhappiness-and, indeed, animal happiness--as such. Consequently, to a certain extentwe adopt a general point of view in our moral judgements, and annex the terms

"right" and "wrong", etc., to conduct beneficial to whoever may be affected by it,whether near or remote from ourselves, known or unknown, friendly or unfriendly tous.

Now it seems to me that this tendency to judge impartially and in accordance withgeneral rules, this tendency to avoid contradiction, disagreement and confusion, thisaversion to the arbitrary, the personal and the subjective, is something which it is notimproper to call "reason". It is very like what Kant called practical reason, thesubordination of our maxims to universal laws; and it is also like that correction by"general rules," which Hume had himself allowed to play a large part in thoseinferences with regard to matters of fact, which he now speaks of as one of theprovinces of "reason" in the proper sense.

If it be once granted that this is a proper use of the term "reason", then there is aform of reasoning with regard to which Hume's objections to the influence of reasonon conduct and moral judgement are not intended to apply. Reason, in this sense, isnot concerned with truth and falsehood, probability and improbability, exceptincidentally. It is concerned with

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order and confusion, harmony and conflict, constancy and inconstancy.

Passions and actions, as Hume rightly observes (p. 167 ) are not the sort of things towhich such terms as "truth" and "falsehood", etc., are applicable; such terms areapplicable only to propositions and beliefs. But they are the sort of things to whichsuch terms as "order" and "confusion", "harmony" and "Conflict", "constancy" and"inconstancy" apply, as Hume himself admits. Reason, in this sense, is not somethingdistinct from passion and desire, it is simply a kind of ordering of the passions anddesires under the prevalence of certain of those that are calm and general. There is,therefore, no difficulty in seeing how it can influence conduct. And Hume admits that itdoes to a certain extent influence conduct.

Finally, reason, in this sense, does, according to Hume, include the regulation bygeneral rules of those sentiments which the terms "ought" and "ought not" serve toexpress. Indeed, he says, the proper use of moral terms is to express thosesentiments when so regulated; therefore reason, in this sense, is directly concernedwith the making of valid moral judgements.

We must, therefore, ask ourselves carefully, before quarrelling with Hume's doctrine ofthe servitude of reason, whether we differ from him in believing that demonstrative orinductive reasoning is the source of moral judgements and can be a cause of action, inwhich case our difference will be one of substance and fact, or whether we disagreewith him only on a terminological question, because we think that the regulation ofsentiments by general rules in the interests of harmony and constancy is part of whatis normally and properly meant by the term "reason".

4. Challenge to Rationalists (Treatise Book III, Part I, Sect. I;Enquiry, Appendix I)

Hume issues a challenge first to those who maintain that "there are eternal fitnessesand unfitnesses of things" which are discoverable by demonstration and impose anobligation on all rational beings, including the Deity; "show me", says Hume, "whatthese relations of fitness and unfitness are" (pp. 166 , 167 , 173 ); and secondly, tothose who assert that virtue and

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vice consist in some empirical features which can be observed or inferred in certainactions, e.g., wilful murder; "show me what these features are" (p. 177 ).

The first challenge, actually addressed to such philosophers as Locke, Price and Clarke,but chiefly noteworthy for the valiant attempt which Kant made to meet it, occupiesthe greater part of the section. It is aimed at the kind of rationalism prevalent inHume's time.

Hume points out that any answer must satisfy two requirements. First, the relationsmust hold only "betwixt internal actions and external objects". If they held alsobetween "external objects", then inanimate things would be capable of virtue and vice;if they held within the mind, then we "might be guilty of crimes in ourselves, andindependent of our situation with regard to the universe". Hume says he cannot thinkwhat these relations can be, which require always that one term should be a passionor volition in the mind, the other an external situation, and which can never holdbetween contents of a single mind, or between external objects alone.

For instance, he says, what is the relation which exists between the will of a parricideand the external situation in which he acts, but is not present in the case of a saplingthat outgrows and kills the parent tree from which it sprung? We feel inclined, ofcourse, to say that the difference is that the parricide knows that his victim is hisfather, but the sapling does not. But Hume would undoubtedly reply that the relationwhich makes an action virtuous or vicious cannot merely be that the agent knowswhat the external situation is; for this relation of knowledge is present alike in casesof virtuous, vicious and indifferent actions. It must be some specific kind ofknowledge; and if you say that it is knowledge of the rightness or wrongness of theaction you argue in a circle, defining right and wrong in terms of the knowledge ofright and wrong.

The second requirement, Hume thinks, is even more difficult to fulfil. The relationsproduced in answer must not only be evidently the same to the understanding of anyrational being; it must also be obligatory on the will of any rational being to shape hisactions so as to preserve or avoid them,

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actually do what is "fitting" and avoid what is "unfitting". This necessary connexionbetween a certain relation of things and the will Hume thinks it will be impossible todiscover. Hume's statement of this requirement (p. 174 ) is marred by the fact that heassumes that "a is obliged to do x in a situation y" means "The perception of thesituation y, or certain features of it, causes a to do x". This analysis is doubtful.

Nevertheless, the point is otherwise a good one. It is one thing to show that a certainaction would have a certain peculiar relation to a certain situation if we did it; it isanother to show that therefore we ought to do it.

The difficulty is the same whether we say that the relation is a mysterious abstract"fittingness", or whether we say that it is that the action would increase humanhappiness. The question has still to be answered, "Why do what is fitting?" or "Whyincrease human happiness?" It is the old difficulty, which we have already considered,of the logical step from an "is" or "is not" (or "would be" or "would not be")proposition, to a proposition with an "ought" in it.

The second challenge, addressed to those who think that morality consists in somematter of fact, or empirical feature, discoverable to the understanding, is shortly puton p. 177 .

"Take any action allowed to be vicious; wilful murder, for instance. Examineit in all lights, and see if you can find that matter of fact or real existence,which you call vice. . . . In which ever way you take it, you find only certainpassions, motives, volitions and thoughts. . . . The vice entirely escapes you,as long as you consider. the objects. You can never find it till you turn yourreflection into your own breast, and find a sentiment of disapprobation. . . ."

The technique is the same as that which Hume used with regard to the causal relation.The vice and the necessary connexion alike escape you, so long as you consider theobjects. You find them when you look into the mind, in the form of a feeling. Withthese comments, I am content to leave these two challenges to the reader, to take upor not as he pleases.

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CHAPTER IIITHE ARTIFICIALITY OF JUSTICE(Treatise Book III, Part II)I. Nature, convention and the moral sentiment

BEFORE giving a detailed account of the moral sentiment, Hume thought it wise tostorm the most cherished stronghold of his opponents, the idea of "justice".

His opponents were of two kinds; those who maintained that the principles of justice,being plainly independent of utility and interest (fiat justitia, ruat caelum) must be"natural laws"; and those who maintained that they were founded on a "socialcontract" and therefore, though artificial, not a matter of sentiment.

Both, Hume says, are mistaken. The principles of justice are, indeed, founded on

artifices, and are therefore not "natural laws". But they are not founded on anycontract, since the keeping of contracts is itself one of the principles of justice. Theyare founded on customary conventions which command our approbation because oftheir utility.

This does not commit Hume to the view that all morality is artificial, for virtues otherthan justice are, he says, useful independently of any conventions, and these may becalled "natural virtues".

Before giving his account of justice Hume gives a brief preliminary account of themoral sentiment ( Treatise Book III, Part I, Sect. II).

First, he tells us in general, what sort of sentiment it is; approval is a pleasant, anddisapproval an. unpleasant feeling (p. 178 ). "The impressions by which good or evil isknown, are nothing but particular pains or pleasures" (p. 179 ). But, he observes,"under the term pleasure, we comprehend sensations

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which are very different from each other" (p. 180 ). He gives as instances the pleasurederived from a good piece of music and the pleasure derived from a good bottle ofwine. Both the music and the wine are "good" simply because they produce pleasure;but the different qualities of the pleasures are marked by the more specific terms ofapproval we bestow; we call the wine "of a good flavour", the music "harmonious".

As these two pleasures differ from one another, so does moral approval differ fromeither. It is the peculiar pleasure caused by the character or sentiments of a person,when these are "considered in general, without reference to our particular interest".

These different pleasures, he adds, may oppose one another and may often beconfounded one with another; but they do not wholly destroy one another and remaindistinguishable to careful reflection. Thus, just as personal enmity may make itdifficult, but not impossible, to appreciate the beauty of an enemy's singing voice, soit makes it difficult, but not impossible, to approve of his moral virtues; oralternatively, the beauty of a man's singing voice may make it difficult, but neverimpossible, to disapprove of his moral vices (p. 180 ). So much for the general natureof the moral sentiment.

Secondly, Hume tells us in what way moral judgements are founded on it. The moraljudgement consists in having the feeling. "We do not infer a character to be virtuous,because it pleases; but in feeling that it pleases after such a particular manner, we ineffect feel that it. is virtuous" (p. 179 ).

This statement is of fundamental importance and gives the lie to misinterpretations ofHume's doctrine which are very common. Hume does not say that "the action x isvirtuous" means "the action x causes pleasure by the thought of it to all or mostmen". He says that "the action x is virtuous" simply expresses the sentiment ofapproval which the speaker feels when he thinks of x in a certain manner.

Often, of course, we use such expressions to voice feelings that are not genuine moralsentiments, not generalised and purged of personal interest; but in such cases we

speak improperly, and do not make genuine moral judgements.

So much for what Hume tells us here of the moral sentiment. The questions he defersare; what features of the characters

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and sentiments of persons cause these feelings of pleasure and pain on a generalsurvey? and, how do they do so? The answers to a certain extent emerge as hisaccount of justice proceeds. The answer to the first question is "their utility", theanswer to the second question is "by sympathy".

We may now turn to Hume's account of the artificial virtues of justice.

2. The general argument for the artificiality of justice (Treatise BookIII, Part II, Sect. I)

Hume starts by offering a complicated general proof of the artificiality of justice. Thisargument may be briefly summarised as follows.

What we approve of and call virtuous or good in an action is always the motive ormotives which we presume it to reveal. There must, therefore, be a motive or motivescapable of impelling men to perform all actions which we call virtuous, including justactions. This motive cannot be the desire to be virtuous, for this motive presupposesthe existence of virtue, i.e., of motives of which we approve. (To say that the motivewe approve of is always the desire to do that action of whose motive we approve is tocommit an obvious vicious circle.)

But if we take just acts singly we often find them to be such that no normal humanmotive would impel a man to do them. On the other hand we can find motives for thepreservation of the general system of justice, as a form of reciprocal behaviouraccording to rules. But such a system is plainly something artificial, set up by someconvention or agreement among men, or devised by one man or set of men, andforced upon others.

Just actions then are only virtuous because they are in accordance with the system,which is artificial; their virtuousness arises from the contrivances of man, withoutwhich they would often not be virtuous, often impossible.

This argument is of special interest in view of a mistake which is alleged by manyeminent moral philosophers to be contained in its first two premisses. Certaincontemporary philosophers, for instance, Sir David Ross in "The Right and the Good",and Mr. E. F. Carritt in "Theory of Morals",

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draw a distinction between the "rightness" and the "moral goodness" of an action.They say that the latter is dependent on the motive of the action, whereas the formeris not. Thus an act can be right, without being morally good, or morally good, withoutbeing right. A man for instance may pay his debts, which is right, from fear of going

to prison, which is a motive of no moral value; and a man may be carried away by hiszeal to fulfil a promise to his dead father, and so ruin his son's prospects, which iswrong, though his motive gives the action moral worth.

These philosophers would admit that for any action to be obligatory or right, theremust be some motive capable of impelling the agent to do it; otherwise it would beimpossible, and therefore could not be obligatory. But, they would say, there is novicious circle involved in supposing that the motive may be in some cases, and couldbe in any case, the desire to do what is right, since right is not defined in terms ofmotives at all.

Now I agree with these philosophers that when we call an act right, just, obligatory ora duty, we are not saying anything about the agent's motives. Right acts ought to bedone however we are feeling, and not only when we happen to be full of puremotives. But I would also agree with Hume that the rightness of the act must be acharacteristic which appeals to some normal human motive. Otherwise we should haveno reason to wish men to behave rightly, and no reason to expect that they everwould unless it happened to be to their interest to do so in a particular case.

The philosophers in question say that rightness is something unique and undefinablewhich we "intuite". It is either said to be an intuitable relation of abstract "fittingness"between acts and situations, or defined in terms of an intuitable predicament of"obligedness" in which men find themselves. Hume would rightly ask them how theconsciousness of such a relation or predicament could influence the will. Why botherabout fittingness or obligation?

Hume could perfectly well do as Mill later did, and do justice to the valid distinctionbetween the right and the morally good, by defining a right act as a useful act, and amorally good act as one done from a desire to be useful, or

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some other motive which usually leads to useful actions. And it is easy to see, hemaintains, what normal human motives prompt us to do and approve of usefulactions; i.e., self-interest and sympathy.

Hume's next step is to show that no motive in human nature is capable of impelling usto all the acts which we call just, considered singly and in themselves.

A just act is not always to the agent's own interest; therefore the motive cannot beself-love. Hume, indeed, considers this suggestion to be too absurd to require longconsideration (p. 187 ). The suggestion that the motive is regard to the public interestis more plausible and receives more consideration.

Hume takes the example of repaying a loan. Such an act is not necessarily to thepublic interest; the debtor might be likely to use the sum more profitably to the publicthan would the creditor; nor is it always the force of the action as a possible exampleto others, and therefore a contribution to public security, which provides the incentiveof which we approve; for the loan and its repayment may both be secret, andstipulated to be such in the terms of the loan (p. 187 ). Finally (pp. 187 -88), Humeroundly denies that there is in human minds "any such passion as the love of mankind

as such, independent of personal qualities, of services, or of relation to ourself".

Lest the reader be too much shocked by this assertion Hume hastens to say thatthere is, however, such a thing as "sympathy", as a result of which "there is nohuman, and, indeed, no sensible creature, whose happiness or misery does not insome measure affect us".

This is the first mention of this important force of sympathy on which his wholeaccount of the moral sentiment in the Treatise is to be founded. And the particularpoint here made in its favour is important. If the principles of morality be foundedentirely on human love of human beings as such, all behaviour towards animals, orindeed angels, is as such morally indifferent. The same conclusion would follow if allmorality were based on human conventions or contracts, to which animals and angelsare not parties, unless the treatment of them were included in the terms of theagreement between men.

But on Hume's view there are natural virtues, independent

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of conventions, and founded on sympathy alone; these virtues cover our treatment ofnon-human sensible beings. Only the principles of justice are founded on humanconventions and cover only our treatment of other human beings. Animals have norights to property or the observance of contracts; but it is a virtue to be kind to them.1

Finally, Hume says, private benevolence cannot be the motive; a just act is not alwaysto the interest of the persons affected by it, still less is it always to the interest ofthose whom the agent loves best (p. 188 ).

Hume concludes that since just acts are not naturally and in themselves to be desiredfor any reason, it must be by some artifice of education and convention that we cometo attach so much importance to them (p. 189).

"In order to avoid giving offence" Hume adds certain important observations, whichanticipate his future arguments (p. 190 ). In saying that the sense of justice is notnatural, he only means that it is artificial; he does not deny that it is natural in thesense of springing from the normal and characteristic workings of the human mind."Man is an inventive species", and the inventions which give rise to justice are theobvious remedies for his natural predicament. It is not, therefore, improper, Humesays, to call the principles of justice "Laws of Nature".

3. The utility of justice and how it was discovered (Treatise Book III,Part II, Sect. II; Enquiry, Sect. III)

Hume now proceeds to his positive exposition of the foundations of justice. He beginsby asking the following question; how are "the rules of justice established by theartifice of men"? (p. 190 ).

To answer this question Hume has to explain two things: first, what the motive is thatprompts men to establish rules of justice and observe them, and secondly, how that

motive came to be operative, which it could never have been unless men

____________________1The distinction between sympathy, which extends to all sentient beings, andspecifically human fellow feeling is not made in the Enquiry. There the originalsentiment on which morality is founded is more often called "the sentiment ofhumanity" than "sympathy", and no psychological account of it in terms of thenatural attraction between the idea of a passion and the passion itself is offered.

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had somehow perceived the advantages which justice would confer (p. 192 ).

The first of these two problems is the more important.

It is a genuinely philosophical problem; the question at issue is not the historical orpsychological question, what motives do in fact lead actual men to perform actual justacts? To this the answer is plainly sometimes one motive, sometimes another; it israther, to what motive do we mean to appeal when we recommend an action bycalling it just?

The second problem, how men came to perceive the advantages of justice, is, on theother hand, an anthropological question, and Hume is to be congratulated, consideringthe paucity of anthropological data in his day, on suggesting a plausible answer(experience in family life), and avoiding to a great extent the extravagances ofspeculative anthropology into which most previous exponents of conventionalist.theories of justice and political obligation had fallen. The "State of Nature" and the"Contract", or "Social Contract", so dear to Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau, as well asthe "Golden Age" of the poets, are, in Hume's view, only convenient fictions.

The original motive to the establishment and observance of justice is, according toHume, the desire for the material prosperity and personal security which only societycan confer (p. 191 ). A man has many needs, food, clothing and housing, all difficultto obtain. By himself he lacks the power and ability to satisfy these needs and protecthimself against his natural enemies. Society, by the conjunction of forces, the partitionof employments and mutual succour, compensates for these infirmities.

There are, however, certain features of man's nature which are obstacles to theformation and preservation of society (p. 192 ); these disruptive forces are the"selfishness and confined generosity" of men, which passions are worked upon by thescarcity and easy transferability of those goods the supply of which society is so usefulin increasing. Each man loves himself better than anyone else, next best his ownfamily and friends, only third best his "neighbours". He, therefore, tends to grab whathe can for himself and his friends, and to induce others to help him in supplyinghimself with goods, but refuse to help them in return.

M

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But he soon discovers that this behaviour defeats its own ends by disrupting society,and that the prosperity of himself and his friends can best be preserved if all membersof society observe a set of rules determining the distribution and transference ofproperty and the keeping of promises, which is all that Hume understands to becomprised under the principles of "justice".

This view of the purpose of the principles of justice, though by no means original, is ofthe greatest importance. If we accept it, we place ourselves at once on the oppositeside of the fence to that perennial school of cynical philosophers who hold that nothingcan contain the "selfishness and confined generosity of men". Principles of justice,they say, so far from being designed to do so, are merely devices to further theselfishness and confined generosity of the dominant class. "Justice", the Greek SophistThrasymachus is reported by Plato to have said, "is the advantage of the stronger";"Ethical codes", say the Marxists, "reflect the interests of the ruling class".

Hume's second problem is, how do men learn these lessons, and in what way do theyput them into effect? They learn these lessons in the family (p. 192 ); and they putthem into effect by convention or agreement (not contract), just as two men rowtogether in a boat by agreement, without any exchange of promises (p. 195 ).

The family is a miniature society which is natural and not artificial. It arises as a resultof the instinctive mutual affection between the parents, and the instinctive concern ofthe parents, for their offspring. Each parent has naturally a concern for the welfare ofthe other and of the children, and quickly sees how selfishness on the part of either,or of the children, diminishes that welfare. Each parent also sees that though thisselfishness is ineradicable it can be rendered to a great extent harmless by theinstitution and enforcement of rules of property and promise-keeping (p. 198 ). Theirconcern for the welfare of each other and the children (as well as themselves) leadsthem largely to observe these rules and to enforce them on the children by means oftheir superior strength and power. The keeping of them becomes to a large extenthabitual with the children, who, as they grow up, observe the benefits of keeping themand the ill-effects of neglecting them.

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Since the family is a natural miniature society, indispensable to the survival of thehuman species, and since it provides the experience necessary to suggest theadvantages of justice and of wider societies, Hume infers that men can never haveexisted anywhere for any considerable time in "that savage state which precedessociety", and probably have always everywhere been to some extent social (p. 198 ).The lone savage, existing in Hobbes' state of war of all against all, is an abstractionwho could scarce have been born or survived to maturity; and society and justice werenot the inventions of the a priori reasoning of some brilliant pioneer, but the commoninferences of all men from experience.

Hume's account of the agreement by which men put these lessons into effect isplausible. When each perceives that to abide by the rules of justice would be for thebenefit of all, and makes clear his intention of doing so as long as the others dolikewise, justice becomes established. Each successful performance of it encouragesothers to take the plunge and trust that their fellows will play their part. Hume is

clearly right in saying that there is such a process, and that it is not the same as acontract.

Promise-keeping is merely a special case of this process. Each makes clear to each thefollowing intention, "I propose to say I promise when I am willing that if I do notperform the action I shall never be trusted again, so long as you use the words withthe same meaning". This is the agreement on which the sanctity of promises isfounded, according to Hume. It is impossible therefore that the sanctity of promisescan be the foundation of all agreements. An agreement is a familiar and intelligibleprocess. A natural sanctity of promises is an unintelligible mystery (pp. 220, 224). 1

We may define an agreement, on Hume's view, as the

____________________1It seems to me that, though Hume is right in saying that particular agreements,such as the agreement to adopt certain rules for the distribution of property, areartificial, there may yet be some common instinctive foundation of all agreements.There seem to be instinctive agreements among animals; two horses instinctivelystand head to tail, so that the tail of each protects the head of the other from theflies. It is possible that an instinct in men leads them, when faced with a commondifficulty or peril, to adopt a general co-operative attitude to one another, by whicheach expresses a willingness to play. his part in some joint action or other, on thesupposition that the other will do likewise.

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manifestation by two or more persons of a common intention, in which each intends toperform the same or complementary actions so long as the other or others dolikewise.

So much for Hume's account of "the manner in which the rules of justice areestablished by the artifice of men". The motive of self-interest, enlightened by theexperience of family life, leads men to form agreements in order to obtain securityand prosperity.

4. The "moral beauty" of justice

Hume's next question is, For what reasons we "attribute to the observance and neglectof these rules a moral beauty and deformity". He answers this question briefly on p.203 . The cause is the force of sympathy.

The thought of the benefits and evils that result for men from the observance andneglect of these rules in the vast majority of cases produces by sympathy feelings ofpleasure and uneasiness. The essence of the properly moral judgement, as Hume isgoing to show when he treats of the natural virtues, is that it is the expression of asympathetically induced pleasure or uneasiness, arising from the contemplation of acharacter or motive in abstraction from considerations of the contemplator's ownparticular interests. Our sympathetically induced approval and disapproval of justiceand injustice therefore perfectly explain the moral beauty and deformity which weattach to them respectively.

5. Justice and self-interest

( Treatise Book III, Part II, Sects. VI and VII; Enquiry Sect. IX, Part II)

There are two objections to Hume's views which I wish to consider. The first is thatHume implies that the "natural" obligation to justice, founded on self-interest, requiresan "inflexible observance of the rules of justice" (pp. 233-35). He implies that it isalways, in the long run, really to the interest of the agent to act justly.

The main argument Hume gives to prove this is that only by such inflexibleobservance can society be preserved, on which the interests of every individualdepend.

But it has often been objected to this that what is most to the interest of any givenindividual is that others should act

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justly and he alone, or with a chosen gang, act as he pleases. The Greek Sophistsmaintained that this was what an absolute despot could and did do. He could secureall the advantages of justice by either concealing his own injustice, or forciblyrestraining others from imitating it. Plato, in the "Republic", puts the positionconcretely by endowing his tyrant with a magic ring which makes him invisible at will.

Now Plato sought to prove the fallacy of this contention by showing that justice wasthe natural and healthy condition of the individual soul as well as of the State. ToHume no such answer is open. There is nothing in the nature of the soul that promptsit to justice, save the intelligence that discovers the conventions necessary forpreserving society. And that same intelligence can teach a man how to exploit them tohis own advantage.

The passage where Hume most explicitly seeks to prove that honesty always pays theagent is Enquiry Sect. IX, Part II, para. 233. The honest man, he says, besides thepleasures of a good conscience and reputation, "has the frequent satisfaction of seeingknaves, with all their pretended cunning and abilities, betrayed by their own maxims;while they purpose to cheat with moderation and secrecy, a tempting incident occurs,nature is frail, and they give in to the snare; whence they can never extricatethemselves, without a total loss of reputation, and forfeiture of all future trust andconfidence with mankind".

This is true enough, but hardly meets the objection. Allay conscience with a drug andavoid mistakes, and the difficulty is met.

But Hume has more to say, which I think implies at least one valid answer to ourobjection:

"In a view to pleasure, what comparison between the unbought satisfactionof conversation, society, study, even health and the common beauties ofnature . . . and the feverish empty amusements of luxury and expense".

Now the pleasures of conversation and society have a more direct connexion with the

principles of justice than Hume anywhere explicitly recognises. They depend on openfriendly intercourse with one's fellow men; as soon as I have a secret to keep or anyneed to force men to act against their will, these pleasures are lost. At once I goabout with a bridle on my

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tongue and my hand on the hilt of my sword, I am back in Hobbes' "state of nature".And every time I act unjustly this is the state I am in. For I am acting as other mendo not wish me to behave (we all wish others to be just), and must either conceal mybehaviour or force their acquiescence. This open fearless intercourse with our fellowsis surely more precious than any of the material gains which dishonesty can win forus.

6. Justice and the public interest (Treatise Book III, Part II, Sect. VI)

The second objection I wish to consider is that Hume is emphatic that the "moral"obligation to justice, founded on sympathy and public utility, also requires an"inflexible observance" of the rules of justice (pp. 233-35). But surely it can be shownthat certain acts of injustice are in fact more beneficial to all concerned than theopposite act.

Take Hume's example: "Here are two persons who dispute for an estate; of whom oneis rich, a fool and a bachelor; the other poor, a man of sense and has a numerousfamily". Public interest plainly requires, on these data, that the estate be secured tothe latter.

Hume answers that the rich fool may nevertheless be the legal owner; and sinceproperty and the rules for its transference are conventions necessary for the existenceof society, it is really to the public interest that the estate be secured to him.

The objector will reply; "Since the rules of property are only accepted on account oftheir utility, surely they would be more useful if they were only adhered to when it ismore useful to do so, and broken when it is not. Provided the rules prescribe what isuseful in the majority of cases, and are observed in the majority of cases, society willnot be imperilled".

Hume replies that such loose and flexible rules would never serve the purpose. Looserules are indeed useful and appropriate for a wide field of private and public conduct;for dress, diet, conversation, entertainment of friends, health, recreation, etc. But"were men to take the liberty of acting with regard to the laws of society, as they doin every other affair (i.e., make exceptions to rules on particular considerations)

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. . . this would produce an infinite confusion in human society, and the avidity andpartiality of men would quickly bring disorder into the world, if not restained by somegeneral and inflexible principles" (pp. 233-34). In matters of vital common interest wemust have universal and inflexible rules, universal because the interests are common,

inflexible because the passions excited are so strong and partial that men cannot betrusted to draw exceptions judiciously in the common interest.

Hume does not deny that particular acts of injustice often in fact turn out to thebenefit of all concerned. But he does deny that it is possible to form a system orpattern of social conventions which combines these particular benefits with the generalbenefits of a stable and orderly society. And the latter is far more important. Eitheryou have inflexible rules governing certain matters or you have confusion. If you haveinflexible rules, the advantages of occasional unjust acts must be foregone.

The very form of Hume's social conventions implies inflexibility. Each agrees always tobehave in a certain way, so long as everyone else always does the same. No onetrusts others, or even himself (p. 237), to draw judicious exceptions in the heat of themoment.

If a man has done an unjust act which has in fact conferred great benefits on hiscountry, we may presumably be glad he did it. But our approval is not thatgeneralised approval which is properly moral, and we are not prepared to recommendthe act as a model for imitation. A good instance is the act of the Athenian statesmanThemistocles who secretly revealed the position and plans of the Greek fleet to thePersian enemy. The Persians as a result attacked the Greek fleet and were disastrouslydefeated. But can we be sure Themistocles was not partly moved by hope of Persianfavour in the event of a Persian conquest, and can we trust others to imitate hisexample without being misled by that motive to do it when the chances of a victoryfor their own side are insufficient?

Hume does, however, lay himself open to a misunderstanding; sometimes he speaksof "inflexible rules", sometimes of "inflexible observance of the rules". Now a rule maybe in a sense "flexible", even if it is inflexibly observed; it may contain a number ofexplicit or implicit qualifying clauses,

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indicating the sort of cases to which it is not meant to apply. And I think it is plainthat the principles of justice, both legal and moral, are of this kind.

Suppose I have promised to dine with a friend, and a guest in my house isdangerously ill and I cannot leave him without grave risk. My friend is not on thetelephone, and I have no means of asking him to release me from my promise. Doesanyone regard himself as party to a social agreement requiring him to keep hispromise in such a case? We all know that such exceptions are tacitly provided for inthe rule that promises should be kept. If I stay with the sick man I have not brokenthe rule; I have interpreted it correctly.

Again, suppose a friend is dangerously ill in my house. The wires are down, the roadsimpassable from snow. Here is a bottle of medicine which will save his life, left in myhouse by a previous visitor. Is it theft to use the medicine, however valuable? Surelynot; the principles of private property tacitly provide for such exceptions. And if theowner of the medicine subsequently sued me at law, it would be open to the courts tomark a technical offence, but dismiss the charge as trifling under the probation ofoffenders act. 1

The principles of justice are themselves "flexible", though the observance of themshould be "inflexible".

____________________1The "flexibility" of legal procedure, under the guiding principle of the public interest,is recognised by Hume in Enquiry, Appendix III, para. 259.

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CHAPTER IVSYMPATHY AND THE NATURAL VIRTUES(Treatise Book III, Part III, Sect. I; Enquiry,Appendix II)1. The psychology of the moral sentiment

ACCORDING to Hume the sentiments of moral approval and disapproval influence thewill and sometimes determine us to action; they must therefore be species of pleasureand pain. For "the chief spring or actuating principle of the human mind is pleasure orpain".

Pleasure and pain give rise to the various "direct passions", i.e. "desire and aversion,grief and joy, hope and fear"; we feel grief or joy when the pleasure or pain is actualor certain to become actual, desire and aversion when it is in our power to achieve orto avoid it, hope or fear when it is merely probable, and the mind wavers betweenbelief and disbelief in its existence ( Treatise Book II, Part III, Sect. IX, p. 148 ff.).

The objects which cause or are expected to cause pleasure or pain may be connectedeither with ourselves or with others. In the former case they cause also the "indirect"passions of pride or humility (i.e. shame), in the latter case those of love or hatred.

Moral approval and disapproval are distinct species of pleasure and pain; the sort thatarises from the survey of mental qualities in ourselves or others. All this Hume hassaid before. It follows, he now points out, that moral approval and disapproval mustalways be accompanied by pride or humility or love or hatred, as we find them in factto be.

It is only, Hume repeats (p. 272), "qualities and characters", "durable principles of themind", which are properly speaking virtuous or vicious, not individual actions. Thelatter are only styled virtuous or vicious in as far as they are indications of

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such "durable principles", which alone can actuate the moral sentiment.

The question is, therefore, Hume says, to discover the causes of the pleasure andpain, pride and shame, love and hatred which we feel on the mere survey of thedurable qualities and characters of men's minds.

The answer, he says, is sympathy. All men are capable, in varying degrees of thesame human feelings; and "when I see the effects of passion in the voice and gestureof any person, my mind immediately . . . forms such a lively idea of the passion as ispresently converted into the passion itself. In like manner, when I perceive the causesof any emotion, my mind is conveyed to the effects and is actuated with a likeemotion" (p. 272). This is the mechanism of sympathy. The idea of any passion orfeeling tends to pass into that very feeling itself, particularly if it is a lively idea, orbelief.

Hume does not mean by "sympathy" a mysterious intuitive power of perceiving whatis going on in someone else's mind. "No passion of another discovers itselfimmediately to the mind. We are only sensible of its causes or effects" (p. 273).

This sympathy, Hume claims to have already shown, is the only explanation of ourapproval and disapproval of justice and injustice; it is also he thinks the principalcause of our love of the beautiful in most cases. It is the tendency to producehappiness, not necessarily our own, which makes us esteem the objects we callbeautiful and the artificial systems of justice, modesty and good manners. Our concernfor the happiness of others who are not necessarily our friends, can arise only fromsympathy (p. 274). "We have no such extensive concern for society, but fromsympathy" (p. 275).

Surely then it is probable that sympathy is the cause of those other virtues and vices,whose pleasant and unpleasant consequences, unlike those of justice and injustice, areevident in each individual case, those other virtues and vices, our feelings towardswhich are generally admitted to be so like those we have for beauty and ugliness.

My first criticism of this argument is that it repeats, for reasons that are not clear, theerror we have already noticed; 1

____________________1p.p. 173 ff.

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i.e. the view that only motives and qualities of character, not acts considered inthemselves, are the proper objects of moral judgements. Acts, he says, are onlyrelevant as indications of character.

The reason here given is that qualities of character are sufficiently "durable" toactuate the moral sentiment, acts are not. But why is the moral sentiment onlyactuated by durable objects? We are not told. Hume could more plausibly have saidthat only qualities of character, or acts deemed to be evidence of them, are closelyenough connected with the person of the agent to actuate the indirect passions ofpride and humility, love and hatred. He could then have admitted that acts inthemselves could produce approval and disapproval because of their pleasant orunpleasant effects (ie., their rightness or wrongness), but that only the qualities ofcharacter, the virtues and vices, could cause love and hatred, pride and humility. Andthis is surely the truth.

Indeed, I think a utilitarian must adopt this position, as J. S. Mill later did. For mostqualities of character only affect human happiness by the acts they lead to. Theycannot, therefore, command our approval unless the acts they lead to command it.

On this view there would be one species of approval, expressed by the word "right",for acts as such, and another species of approval, expressed by the words "virtue","virtuous", "morally good", for qualities of character and acts regarded as springingfrom them. The difference would consist in the admixture of pride or love contained inthe latter kind of approval but not in the former.

My second criticism is that Hume is unnecessarily egoistic. Let us allow that pleasureand pain form "the chief spring or actuating principle of the human mind". Very well,then it must be pleasure and pain, or the thought of pleasure and pain, which producemoral approval and disapproval, just as they produce desire and aversion, hope andjoy, grief and fear. But why should it be only my own pleasure or the thought of itwhich can arouse a direct passion? Why should not Hume say that pleasure and painwhen thought of, not as our own, but as anybody's, arouse directly feelings ofapprobation and disapprobation? Plainly he thought that this was not true.

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It seemed to him self-evident that only what is pleasant or painful to me can arousein me a passion for or against it. Therefore it seemed to him that the thought ofanother's pleasure or pain must be converted in my mind by the mechanism ofsympathy into an actual pleasure or pain of mine, before it can move my passions andactuate my will.

Now in the Enquiry written ten years later, Hume does take the view that the thoughtof the pleasures and pains of others directly produces a sentiment in me, which hecalls "humanity" or "benevolence", and makes the foundation of moral approval anddisapproval.

Moreover, he finds he can say this without wholly abandoning the supposedly self-evident proposition that only what is pleasant or unpleasant to me can, at least onreflection, move my passions; for he finds reason to suppose that the pleasures andpains of others are among the things that are, without any intervention of thesympathy mechanism, pleasant and unpleasant to me. Let us see how he came toform this altered opinion, the germs of which are already present in the Treatise.

If we look at the beginning of the section in the Treatise on "The origin of the naturalvirtues and vices", we see that Hume does not say that pleasure and pain are the onlyactuating principle of the human mind. He says they are "the chief" actuatingprinciples. What other principles are there, which Hume had in mind?

The others are certain original instincts, such as "desire of punishment to our enemies,and of happiness to our friends; hunger, lust and a few other bodily appetites. Thesepassions, properly speaking, produce good and evil, and proceed not from them, likethe other affections" ( Treatise Book II, Part III, Sect. IX, p. 149). Similarly, on p. 129, he distinguishes between two kinds of desires, "certain instincts originally implantedin our natures, such as benevolence and resentment, the love of life and kindness tochildren", on the one hand, and on the other "the general appetite to good and

aversion to evil, considered merely as such". "Good" and "evil" in both these passagesmean simply pleasure and pain.

By saying that "these passions produce good and evil" he means that their objects,e.g., revenge and food, are pleasant simply because we have an instinctive urge forthem; whereas

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in the case of the other passions, we desire the object because we know or believe itto be pleasant.

These original instinctive desires are what Hume calls "original" as opposed to"secondary" impressions ( Treatise Book II, p. 1); they arise from natural and physicalcauses of which we are not conscious. The secondary or reflective impressions, towhich class most of the passions in which Hume is interested are supposed to belong,arise either from the original impressions or their ideas. He does not profess in theTreatise to be much concerned with original impressions; the examination of thembelongs to "the sciences of anatomy and natural philosophy" ( Treatise Book II, p. 1).

The position in the Treatise is therefore that we have certain original instincts, whosegratification causes pleasure and whose disappointment causes pain. We have alsoreflective passions, such as hope and fear, joy and grief, pride and shame, which areevoked in various ways by the pleasures and pains produced by the original instincts,or by the thought of those pleasures. What Hume does not seem clearly to haverecognised in the Treatise is that since these reflective passions must, on this view, allbe dependent on the original instincts and physiological conditions which alone canproduce pleasure and pain, the original instincts cannot be ignored, and left to the"anatomists" and "natural philosophers".

By the time he wrote the Enquiry, some ten years later, he had clearly recognisedthis; consequently, in Appendix II, "Of Self-love", he states a position exactly similarto that of Bishop Butler in his "Fifteen Sermons". 1 Hume now says:

"There are bodily appetites and wants . . which necessarily precede allsensual enjoyment, and carry us directly to seek possession of the object.Thus hunger and thirst have eating and drinking for their end; and from thegratification of these primary appetites arises a pleasure, which may becomethe object of another species of desire, or inclination, which is secondary andinterested. In the same manner there are mental passions by which we areimpelled immediately to seek particular

____________________1We know from Hume's letters that he was very anxious to obtain Butler's opinion onthe Treatise before publishing it, but was unable to do so. He probably did hear hisopinion before he wrote the Enquiry.

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objects, such as fame or power or vengeance, without any regard tointerest; and when these objects are attained, a pleasing enjoyment ensues,as the consequence of our indulged affections. Nature must, by the internalframe and constitution of the mind, give an original propensity to fame, erewe can reap any pleasure from that acquisition, or pursue it from motives ofself-love and desire of happiness. . . . In all these cases there is a passionwhich points immediately to the object, and constitutes it our good orhappiness; as there are secondary passions which afterwards arise andpursue it as part of our happiness, when once it is constituted such by ouroriginal affections".

This new point of view, attributing much greater importance to the original instincts,and clearly recognising their disinterested character, led Hume to give a differentaccount of several passions; in the Treatise the love of fame received a complicatedaccount in which sympathy played the principal part (Book II, Part I, Sect. II). In theEnquiry we just have a natural propensity towards fame, and that is the end of thematter. Just as this account is much simpler than the complicated Hobbist accountwhich Hume is arguing against in Appendix II, "Of Self-love", so it is simpler than hisown earlier account; and the simpler account, he says, is to be preferred.

On the same principle he adopts a different and simpler account of that concern forthe happiness of others which is the foundation of the moral sentiment. In the Treatise"benevolence" is, indeed, regarded as an original instinct; but it is a confinedbenevolence, a desire for the happiness of our own friends; there is no natural andoriginal love of man for man as such. The concern for the general happiness is due tothe mechanism of sympathy, the natural attraction of ideas and impressions. In theEnquiry all this is dropped, and a natural and universal benevolence or "sentiment ofhumanity" is substituted. The passage quoted above accordingly continues as follows:

"Now where is the difficulty in conceiving that this may likewise be the casewith benevolence and friendship, and that, from the original frame of ourtemper we may feel

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a desire for another's happiness or good, which, by means of that affection,becomes our own good, and is afterwards pursued, from the combinedmotives of benevolence and self-enjoyment? . . . What a malignantphilosophy it must be, that will not allow to humanity and friendship thesame privileges (i.e., being natural or original) which are indisputablygranted to the darker passions of enmity and resentment"

.Thus, in the Enquiry, the dubious tacit premiss of the argument for sympathy as thebasis of the moral sentiment is dropped; it is not true that our only motive is desirefor our own pleasure; originally we desire whatever our instincts impel us to, whichmay as well be the happiness of another, as, in the case of vengeance, it isundoubtedly his unhappiness. Secondarily, on reflection, we pursue whatever thegratification of our instincts renders pleasant to us. Sympathy is no longer needed toexplain our concern for the happiness of others; an original instinct of humanity is asimpler and, he thinks, truer explanation.

2. The correction of sympathy in moral judgementsHume now proceeds to discuss a threefold objection to his system.Our sympathy withothers, and the same is true of the sentiment of humanity, substituted for it in theEnquiry, varies in proportion to:A. The distance in time and place from ourselves of the persons benefited or harmed,

and their personal relations to ourselves (p. 277).B. The extent to which our own interests are affected by the actions which benefit or

harm the persons with whom we sympathise.C. The degree of benefit or harm actually produced.But in our moral judgements:A. "We give the same approbation to the same moral qualities in China as in

England" (p. 277), and we consider the diligence and faithfulness of our ownservant no more laudable than the similar qualities of Marcus Brutus (p. 278).

B. "We overlook our own interests . . ., and blame not

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a man for opposing us in any of our pretensions, when his own interest isparticularly concerned" (p. 278).

B. "Virtue in rags is still virtue; and the love which it procures attends a man into adungeon or desert, where the virtue can no longer be exerted in action, and islost to the world".

Hume's answer to this objection in all three forms is in essence the same. The moraljudgement is sympathetic approval or disapproval corrected by "reason" in a loose andimproper sense of the word. This "reason" is "nothing but a general calmdetermination of the passions, founded on some distant view or reflexion" (p. 279).

The motive to adopt this general distant viewpoint and the calm and steady passions itarouses, is the dislike we have for the constant fluctuations and contradictions whicharise in our sentiments, and the confusions which arise in society and conversation,when we feel and speak in a manner determined solely by the particular, changeableand accidental circumstances of the case in question (pp. 277-79).

It would be most inconvenient if, even where there were no doubt about the facts, Icalled a given act right and you called it wrong one moment, and a little later I calledit wrong and you called it right, owing to the differences and changes of our personalrelations to the agent and the persons affected. It would be most inconvenient if oftwo essentially similar acts one was called virtuous and the other vicious because ofdifferences in accidental circumstances possibly unknown to the agent.

The method of achieving this general and distant viewpoint is by means of theimagination. I imagine myself as near in time and place to Marcus Brutus as I am tomy servant, and as distant from my servant as I am from Marcus Brutus; I imaginemyself as disinterested when in fact I am interested; I imagine the benefits usuallyconferred by a certain mental quality, ignoring the peculiar impediments attaching tothe particular case.

"The imagination has a set of passions belonging to it" Hume says (p. 280). Theseexercises of the imagination produce a passion uninfluenced by the accidental and

peculiar circumstances of the case. It is not really a passion with an imaginary

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object, though Hume's language rather suggests this (p. 280). The action or characteris still real; but it is imagined with its accidental and variable qualities and relationsremoved or changed. The generous man in the dungeon still really has a generousmind; he is only imagined to be free, instead of in a dungeon, in order that I may feelthe passion appropriate to generosity in general, not generosity in chains.

The emotional response to the generalised view of the object is sympathy. "Being thusloosened from our first station (the particular view), we cannot afterwards fixourselves so commodiously by any means as by a sympathy with those who have anycommerce with the person we consider".

Now whatever we may think of Hume's account of sympathy or of humanity, whateverwe may think of his equation of the good with the pleasant, there can be no doubtthat there must be some passion which moves us to approve of certain ends and theactions and characters which usually tend to achieve them, and there can be no doubtthat this passion is in fact generalised and rendered impersonal and impartial verymuch in the way Hume describes. I regard Hume's account of "that reason which isable to oppose our passion" (p. 279) by generalising it in the interests of stability,coherence and the intelligibility of language, as one of the most valuable suggestionsto be found in his philosophy. My only objection is to his saying that this use of theterm "reason" is loose and improper. On the contrary, it seems to me that this is justthe sort of mental process which we usually and properly call "being reasonable".

It has been argued against Hume that there may be several different principles ormotives underlying the generalised approvals and disapprovals of men, and that somemen may be exclusively moved by one and some by another. Thus Professor C. L.Stevenson in "Language and Ethics" (pp. 273 ff.) says that Hume makes the dubiousassumption that if all differences in opinion on questions of fact were removed,everyone would agree in their attitudes of approval and disapproval; and that this isbecause Hume confines himself to the consideration of "benevolent attitudes", whichis, in effect, not to offer an impartial analysis of moral judgements as they are actuallymade, but to preach an Ethics of Benevolence.

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I think such a criticism ignores much of what is most important in Hume's system. Itis, indeed, the suggestion of certain very condensed passages in the Enquiry (the onlywork of Hume's to which Professor Stevenson refers) that if all differences onquestions of fact were removed, men's attitudes, in as far as they were not influencedby self-love or passions due to particular features of particular cases, would bedetermined solely by benevolence. But it is quite clear from the passages in theTreatise which we have been considering, and also from Enquiry, para. 221, that thissuggestion is not a bare assumption. Hume offers us a more precise analysis than

Professor Stevenson ever does of the purpose for which we use ethical terms. Theirtendency, he says, is towards universal agreement in attitude (approval ordisapproval) about human actions and qualities of character. They are used to makerecommendations for universal adoption. Now a recommendation presupposes in theperson or persons to whom it is addressed some motive or motives to which appeal ismade. A universal recommendation therefore presupposes a universal motive ormotives, which will make all men accept that recommendation. Benevolence (orsympathy) would make all men accept the same recommendations; benevolence ispresent, however weak, in all normal men. No other human motive that Hume canthink of would produce this agreement. Therefore, Hume argues, all genuine moraljudgements make appeal to benevolence, and make recommendations on grounds ofgeneral utility. 1

The possibility of divergent fundamental attitudes is considered by implication in theTreatise (Book III, Part III, Sect. I, p. 279).

What Hume there says is, not that benevolence or sympathy is the only principle bywhich we can determine our attitudes after being loosened from our first partial andbiased "station", but that "we cannot afterwards fix ourselves so commodiously by anymeans as by a sympathy with those who have any commerce with the person weconsider". Hume is suggesting that other

____________________1Men do, of course, from various motives praise useless and blame harmless actions.But their procedure is futile. The retort "Why? What good (or harm) does it doanyone?" finds them without an answer. Just as, when men blame or punishunavoidable actions, the retort "But he could not have avoided it" is, as ProfessorStevenson recognises, conclusive.

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motives by which men might determine their generalised approvals and disapprovalswould have disadvantages, which sympathy (or benevolence) alone lacks.

Let us consider what these disadvantages could be.

Suppose somebody prefers to fix his moral judgements by saying that all actions andcharacters should be judged by their tendency to retard or accelerate the inevitableemergence of a world-wide classless society, or the evolution of the superman, or thespread of Christianity. We know men do, in fact, do this; and we know whatconfusion, disagreement and inconvenience their resultant conflicting attitudesproduce.

Now, according to Hume, it is precisely the dislike of confusion, contradictions, etc.,that led men to seek some general and impartial standpoint. Therefore, that samedislike of confusion which required the abandonment of conflicting and unstable,personal and interested standpoints, will require the correction of the conflictinggeneralised standpoints by some universally acceptable one. And the only standpointwhich will do the job, he says, is sympathy (benevolence).

Now it may be objected that it is just as true that all men would agree in their moral

judgements (differences on questions of fact being resolved) if they were all goodMarxists or all good Christians or all good Nietzcheans, as it is that they would allagree if they were all good Utilitarians; where then is the superiority of thebenevolence principle?

To this I think there are two answers.

First, that the other principles cited, and probably most others that could be cited, reston factual beliefs; that the classless society is inevitable, that the doctrine of Evolutionis true, that Jesus Christ was the son of God, and so on. They are, therefore, notgenuine principles for fixing attitudes after the elimination of factual disagreements.

Second, it is not enough that a principle would in theory produce agreement if adoptedby all; it is also necessary that there should be some hope of getting it adopted byothers, and sticking to it myself. And there is no such hope unless there is somemotive present in all normal men at most times capable of impelling them to adopt it.

Obviously there is no motive capable of impelling members of the bourgeoisie to adoptthe Marxist principle; except

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possibly benevolence, if they can be persuaded that the classless society would be thehappiest. Nor is there really any motive capable of impelling the weak to adopt aprinciple requiring their elimination in order that the strong may more quickly generatesupermen; except possibly benevolence, if they can be persuaded that the race ofsupermen would be the happiest form of humanity.

But the benevolence principle itself makes no factual assumptions, and appeals notonly to the motive of benevolence itself, but also to self-love; it is difficult to see whatother principle could make a greater appeal to self-love. Ex hypothesi not all mywishes can be gratified without a fight, since some of them conflict with the wishes ofothers; ex hypothesi I dislike fights (otherwise I would not bother to make moraljudgements); what other principle has more to promise than the principle that thehappiness of all concerned should be maximised, the wishes of all gratified as far aspossible? It is a choice in the end between this principle and perpetual conflict, withinmy own mind, and between myself and others. If there is another alternative, to useHume's words, "I desire that it may be produced".

This is philosophising, not preaching. Here is first an analysis of the facts; when wemake moral judgements we express feelings for and against, feelings so generalisedand impartialised that they can serve as common bases for practical agreement. Andsecondly, here is a challenge; how else, but by the benevolence principle, can you getfeelings suitable to be a basis of practical agreement? That is the Humean way ofphilosophising; a combination of the experimental method with the method ofchallenge.

Before leaving Hume's theory of morals, there is an amendment I would like topropose to it; an amendment which, if carried, would I think not be in the leastdamaging to his general position.

It will be noticed that in the last few pages I have, following Professor Stevenson'susage, tended to use the term "attitude", where Hume would have said "sentiment ofapproval or disapproval". Hume seems to have thought that the moral sentiment wasa perfectly specific introspectible feeling of pleasure or pain. It is, I think, rightlyobjected by many modern

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philosophers that it is not possible to find and identify this specific feeling.

If moral approval and disapproval were specific feelings, then the degree of moralapproval or disapproval should vary with the intensity of this feeling. But in fact itseems to be to a large extent independent of degree of intensity of any feeling.Therefore, Professor Stevenson and others prefer to speak of "attitudes" rather than"sentiments", and to define attitudes as dispositions to speak, feel and act in certainways.

My proposed amendment is, therefore, to substitute the term "attitude", defined asabove, for "sentiment" or "feeling" throughout. Do this, and Hume's main positionremains unshaken. Moral decisions consist not in the discovery of any empirical ordemonstrable facts, but in our attitudes towards the facts. When all questions of facthave been settled, the moral question remains, what is our attitude, or, perhapsbetter, by what stable, universal and general attitude can our more particular attitudesbe corrected, harmonised and rendered consistent with one another.

I have, in effect (see my p.), proposed a similar amendment to Hume's theory ofbelief. Belief is not a specific introspectible way of imagining or feeling attached toimages. It is a disposition to feel, imagine, speak and act in the way that would satisfymy needs if the propositions I believe were true.

Hume was, I think, right in thinking that belief and moral approval were the same sortof thing, right in thinking that each tended to be corrected and harmonised by generalrules in the same sort of way. Just as the influence on the mind of general utility,appealing to benevolence and enlightened self-love, corrects and harmonises ourmoral approvals and disapprovals, so does the influence on the mind of the generalrun of experience as a whole correct and harmonise our factual beliefs. 1 But he wasnot quite right in his account of what sort of thing belief and moral approval are. Theyare not exactly "sentiments"; they are dispositions; dispositions actualised partly butnot exclusively in feelings.

____________________1If this is true, the principles of Utilitarian Ethics, if they could be worked out as, forinstance, Bentham tried to work them out, would be related to ethical judgementsin the same way as the principles of Inductive Logic are related to empiricaljudgements of fact.

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APPENDIXFREEDOM OF THE WILL(Treatise Book II, Part III, Sects. I & II; EnquiryconcerningHuman Understanding, Sect. VIII)

HUME sides definitely with the determinists in this ancient controversy, but in amanner peculiarly his own. These sections are notable for the rigorous consistencywith which he applies his doctrine of causation to the question. The conclusion towhich this method leads him is that the controversy is unreal and rests on confusionswhich are mainly terminological.

All men have ever been agreed, he says, that human actions are necessary anddetermined in one sense, which is the proper sense, and have only been inclined todeny that they are determined in another sense, to which he says no clear meaninghas ever been assigned.

Similarly, all men have ever been agreed that human actions are free in one sense,but that sense has been confused with another sense of the word "freedom", in whichit is absurd to say they are free.

The issue has been complicated, he says, by theological considerations. In the Treatisewe read that theology has been "very unnecessarily interested in this question", i.e.,has meddled in philosophy. In the Enquiry he affects greater politeness to theologians;he censures philosophy for her "temerity" in prying into the "sublime mysteries" ofreligion. His tone is undoubtedly ironical, if not sarcastic.

All men have ever agreed, Hume says, in thinking human actions to be necessary andto have causes. That is, according to his view of cause and necessity, they have (a)always found constant conjunctions between men's actions and their motives, andbetween their motives and their situations, tempers, sex,

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upbringing, nationality, etc.; and (b) they have always made inferences concerninghuman actions in accordance with their experience of this regularity.Now this is allthey have in fact been able to do with regard to inanimate objects; our reasoningsconcerning human actions and physical processes are on exactly the same footing. Ineach case, where irregularities are found, the same presumption is made with thesame degree of justification, that if all the facts were known the apparent irregularitywould be found to be due to contrary causes. The mistake men have made is tosuppose that in physical events they can discover some objective necessity, somethingmore than mere regularity in the object and determination of their own thought aboutit; then, turning to human actions and introspecting their own behaviour, they haveannounced that they cannot find this objective necessity there, and that human

actions are therefore "undetermined".Men have ever agreed, Hume says, that humanactions, or some of them, are free, i.e., have the liberty of spontaneity. What we dodepends on what we choose to do, on our thoughts and wishes. The opposite of thisfreedom is compulsion, as ordinarily understood. But they have confused freedom ofspontaneity with freedom of indifference, i.e., the absence of a cause, or chance; andconsequently have tended to assert that human actions are not caused, which isabsurd.Libertarians, according to Hume, have supported their muddle-headedcontention by three arguments.I. An appeal to a delusion of introspection ( Treatise, p. 121, Enquiry, para. 72,

footnote). Though we commonly regard human actions, when viewed from theoutside, as due to psychological causes, and so determined, when we reflect on apresent or very recent action of our own, it seems to us, for two reasons, that wecould equally well have done the opposite. First, we find that we can equallyeasily imagine ourselves doing the opposite, for instance raising an arm instead oflowering it; this is presumably because we have as often raised our arm aslowered it in the past. Secondly, we find that on repeating the experiment, wecan raise the arm instead of lowering it, though the circumstances are, we think,identical. But, Hume points out, the circumstances are not identical. For there isnow

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present a motive which was absent before, i.e., the desire to show our liberty byraising our arm. And this is the cause of our raising it.

This passage in Hume is a very penetrating piece of analysis, and his discovery aspecial case of a more general truth which has since been widely recognised ashaving an important bearing on the question of the freedom of the will.

This general truth is that a human action is liable to be affected by any thoughtthat the agent may have about it, including his thought that he is or is not certainor likely to do it. A consequence of it is that, though human actions have theircauses as much as physical events, they are not in principle predictable in thesame way. For the thought that I am bound to do a certain action may touch offmotives which will prevent me doing it; and the thought that another man isbound to do something may lead me to communicate to him thoughts about thataction which will prevent him doing it. I may, for instance, tell him that his deadfather would have been very shocked if he could see him do it.

Human actions are thus unpredictable in principle in a way that physical eventsare not, and dependent on human thoughts in a way that physical events are not.But these facts do nothing to show that our actions and our thoughts do not takeplace according to causal laws.

II. A delusive appeal to moral considerations ( Treatise, p. 122 ff., Enquiry, paras.75-77). The argument is that if human actions are all causally determined, theycannot have any merit or demerit, or deserve reward and punishment, praise andblame.

Hume argues that the liberty of spontaneity is, indeed, necessary for moralresponsibility, but the liberty of indifference would entirely destroy it. Unless

human actions were caused by the motives, characters, and temperaments of theagents, if they were mere disconnected flukes, however deplorable andunfortunate they might be, they would not be proper objects of the passions ofanger and hatred on which vengeance is founded. And unless they were affectedby the thoughts and wishes and fears of the agents, rewards and punishmentswould be quite ineffective in controlling them.

This argument, says Hume, applies equally to human and

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divine rewards, punishments, and vengeance. Moral responsibility therefore doesnot presuppose the freedom of indifference. It presupposes merely that a man'sactions should be partly determined by his thoughts and feelings about them andtheir consequences. When we do not think this is so, as in the case of akleptomaniac, we do not regard the man as responsible for his actions, andconsider blame and punishment inappropriate, simply because they are useless (Treatise Book III, Part III, Sect. IV, p. 302).

II. Theological considerations ( Enquiry, paras. 78-81). These difficulties Hume doesnot claim entirely to "obviate or remove" (para. 78); the failure does not worryhim very much, since theologians have been quite unable to reconcile "theindifference and contingency of human actions with prescience" (and, he shouldhave added, with omnipotence) (para. 81), and, consequently, there are just asstrong theological arguments against libertarianism. Philosophy should leavedivine mysteries alone and return to "the examination of common life; where shewill find difficulties enough" (para. 81).

Hume does, however, do something to weaken the theological argument againstdeterminism. The argument is really a dilemma; "If human actions can be tracedup, by a necessary chain, to the Deity", then either God is perfect, and nothingthat is originated by him can be evil, in which case no human actions are evil, andthere is no such thing as guilt or sin, or human actions are criminal, and God astheir ultimate author must be held guilty of them (para. 78). Hume suggests ananswer to the first horn of the dilemma. I think he might have suggested answersto both, had he not been unwilling to embroil himself in theological controversy.

The answer he suggests to the first horn of the dilemma is as follows: "There arephilosophers who conclude", he says (but does not say he believes them) "thatthe whole, considered as one system, is, in every period of its existence orderedwith perfect benevolence. . . . Every physical ill makes an essential part of thisbenevolent system, and could not possibly be removed, even by the Deity himself,. . . without giving entrance to greater ill". The same may be presumed to be trueof moral ill (para. 79).

Now, if this is so, Hume says, God is plainly exculpated;

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but it does not follow that the evils which are necessary parts of the good whole

are therefore not evil. The Stoics, he says, had tried to maintain that physicalevils, such as pain, were not really evils, on just these grounds; and nobody inpractice was much consoled by them. On the contrary, from the operation of thepsychological principles, which Hume has described, we shall still continue todisapprove of vice because of its disagreeable effects, whatever we may think ofits ultimate origin. We shall still disapprove of the vicious characters necessarilyincluded in the world. And if we really disapprove of them they really are vicious.

As regards the second horn of the dilemma, it might seem that Hume could havesaid that we shall still wholeheartedly approve of God for making the best of allpossible worlds, even if we disapprove of the vicious characters necessarilyincluded in it; and if we really do wholeheartedly approve of God, he really isperfectly good. Hume, however, does not commit himself to this heterodoxopinion.

What he actually says elsewhere 1 is that the moral sentiments have their originin human nature and human society. Virtues and vices are human qualitiespleasing and unpleasing to human spectators. God is not a human being; there is,therefore, no more sense in calling him unjust or unkind than there is in calling analligator unjust or unkind. Experience affords no evidence that the Creator'ssentiments are at all similar to ours. It suggests rather that they are verydifferent, since he has made a world so very different from any that we shouldhave wished to make.

____________________1"Dialogues concerning Natural Religion", Parts XI and XII., J. Hill Burton, "Life andCorrespondence of David Hume", Vol. I, p. 119.

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INDEXA priori and empirical propositions, 46Aaron, Professor, 39Adam, Mrs., 12 agreement, definition of, 179 - 80 analogy, reasoning by, 90analytic propositions, 46 angels, moral behaviour towards, 175 animals, moralbehaviour towards, 175Annandale, Marquis of, 10 anthropology, 177Archimedes, 52Aristotle, 107 , 159 assent, Hume's account of, 75 ; habits of, 77 ; habitual,feeling of, 78 association, 36 , 39 , 65 ; and necessary connexion, 66 ; andpseudo-beliefs, 76 assurance, four kinds of, 40 attitudes, 196Autobiography, Hume's, 11Ayer, Professor, A. J., 130BELIEF, 55 ; vivacity and, 60 ; and inference, 66 ; "well established," 74 ;strength of, 75 ; states of mind which simulate, 76 ff.; habitual, 77 ; particular

and general, 77 ; estimate of Hume's account of, 80 , 81 ; and moral approval,197 benevolence, 188 , 190 , 196Berkeley, Bishop, 35 , 36 , 38 , 105 , 121 , 122 , 123 , 133 , 134 , 139 ff., 147Berlin, I., 134Birkbeck Hill, G., 8 bodies, 118 ff.Brutus, Marcus, 191 , 192Butler, Bishop, 11 , 159 , 189CANCER, cause of, 57Carlyle, Alexander, 12Carritt, E. F., 173Cartesians, 105 , 107 , 137 causality, 49 ff. causation, 43 ; universal, 55 ff.challenge, method of, 18 , 19 , 30 chance, 56 ; nature of, 84 , 85 ; equalchances, 85 ; families of chances, 85Charlemont, Earl of, 10Christian Science, 120Churchill, Mr., 101Clarke, Samuel, 168 "coherence," 123 ff.common use of words, 109 , 110compulsion and freedom, 200conceiving, manner of, 70 , 73conceptual investigation, 108conceptualists, 33 , 34 , 38conjunction, constant, 54 , 55 , 61connexion, necessary, 31 , 51 , 53 , 57 , 62 ; inference and, 62 ; association and,66connexions, our beliefs in specific causal, 59 ff."constancy" 123 ff.contiguity, 51 , 96convention, nature and, 171 ff.custom, 38 , 39 , 103DEDUCTIVE reasoning, 17demonstrative reasoning, 40 , 42 ; and moral judgments, 160 ff.Descartes, 40 , 120 , 121 , 146 , 161 ; and ontological argument, 71determination of the mind, 79 , 113 determinists, 198"Dialogues concerning Natural Religion," 11EDUCATION, 95 ; beliefs due to, 79 , 80 empiricism, 32Epicurus, 107 , 158Essays, Moral and Political, 10 essences, real, 64

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evil, origin of, 202 existence, idea of, 70 ; not a predicate, 70 , 71 expectation,habit and, 92 ff. experience, 27 experimental method, 17 - 19 , 95FACT, matters of, 40 , 43 ff. factual inference, 43 ; and causal relations, 49 ff.family, origins of society in, 179 fatalism, 104 firmness, 72 , 78 , 79 fittingness,169 force, 72 freedom of the will, 198 ff. Freud, 125 functional dependence, 52future, idea of, 93 , 94GAP-indifference, 126 general rules, 96 -8, 100 , 112 , 166 generality, 38 , 39Gibbon, 11Grednnig, J. Y. T., 8

HABIT and expectation, 92 ff. hedonism, 154Heisenberg, 57Hendel, C. W., 8Heraclitus, 107Hertford, Earl of, 11 history, 97 ; Hume's writing of, 10 , 11Hitler, 81Hobbes, Thomas, 177 , 179 , 182Hooker, 159 humanity, 188 hunting, 53IDEAS, 23 ff.; of ideas, 26 ; simple, 27 ; innate, 31 , 109 , 120 ; abstract, 33 ff.;relations of, 43 ff., 73identity, 50 , 127 ; personal, 138 ff., 146 ff.images, mental, 24 , 25 , 28 ; generic, 36 , 90 ; fusion of, 86 , 90 , 91imagination, ideas of, 41impartiality, 166impenetrability, 129impressions, 23 ff.induction, 14 ; universal causation known by, 58 , 59 ; pre-supposition of, 59inference and belief, 66 ; nature and causes of, 69 ff.; necessary connexion and,116instincts, original, 188intuition, 62JERUSALEM, new, 29Johnson, Dr., 11judgment, defective traditional account of, 69justice, artificiality of, 171 ff.; utility of, 176 ff.; moral beauty of, 180 ; and self-interest, 180 ff.; and the public interest, 182 ff.KANT, 52 , 61 , 166 , 168 ; and ontological argument, 71Kemp Smith, N., 8 knowledge and probability, 40 ff.LAING, B. M., 8Laird, John, 8 , 114Leibnitz, 107likelihood, 85 , 86Locke, John, 25 , 35 , 36 , 61 , 64 , 83 , 105 , 139 , 159 , 177Lucretius, 107MARXISTS, 178 , 195 materialists, arguments of, 143Maya, 120memory, 40 , 41merit and freedom of the will, 201 , 202metaphysics, speculative, 15metaphysicians, errors of, 139 ff. method of challenge, 95 , 105Mill, J. S., 8174, 187mind, 137 ff.moral sentiments, the psychology of, 185 ff.; a species of pleasure and pain, 185morality, Hume's account of, 154 ff.

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NAPOLEON, 104nature, state of, 177 , 182"Natural History of Religion", 11

Natural Law, 159 , 171 , 176necessary connexion, 103 ff.Newton, 104Nietzcheans, 195nominalists, 33OBLIGATION, 169observations, 25occasionalists, 107ontological proof, 70ostensive definition, 37PARMENIDES, 40passions--and reason, 163 ff.; calm and strong, 165 ; direct and indirect, 185 ;reflective, 189past reference, 42phenomenalism, 121 , 129 ff.physiologists, simple-minded, 128Plato, 16 , 31 , 107 , 120 , 178 , 181"Political Discourses", 11power, 64 , 104 ff.prejudice, 95 , 99Price, Professor H. H., 8 , 39 , 126Price, Richard, 168primary qualities, 120priority, 51probability, 83 ff.; and knowledge, 40 ff.; of chances and of causes distinguished,83 , 84 ; of chances, 84 ff.; of causes, 87 , 89 ; of particular events, 87 , 88 ;reflective and unreflective judgments of, 89 ; unphilosophical, 94 ff. promises,sanctity of, 179 , 184punishment and freedom of the will, 201 , 202QUALITIES, simple and unanalysable, 29RATIONALISTS, 16 , 17 , 120rationality, 99 - 100realists, 33 , 34 , 38realities, the ideas called, 76 , 77reason, 193 ; servitude of, 159 ff.; indirect influence of, 163 - 4 ; improperly so-called, 165 ff.reasoning, 49resemblance, 96Ross, Sir David, 173Rousseau, 11 , 177rules, flexible and inflexible, 182 ff.ST. CLAIR, General, 10scepticism--with regard to senses, 41 , 118 ff.; with regard to reason, 99 - 101secondary qualities, 120self, 146 ff.Selby-Bigge, L. A., 7senses, evidence of, 14 ; scepticism with regard to, 118 ff.; opposition betweenreason and, 129Smith, Adam, 11Social contract, 171 , 177society, 177

Socrates, 159solidity, 72soul, immateriality of, 138 ; immortality of, 142 ; and body, 145Spinoza, 142spirit, Berkeley's notion of, 140statistical method, 89 , 90steadiness, 72 , 78 , 79Stevenson, Professor, C. L., 193 ff., 196 , 197Stoics, 203Stout, Professor, 64superstition, 58substance, 139 - 40symbols, 26sympathy, 173 , 175 ; mechanism of, 186 , correction of, 191 ff.synthetic propositions, 46THEMISTOCLES, 183theologians, 138 ff.theology and freedom of the will, 198 ff.

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Thorez, M. Maurice, 47Thrasymachus, 178Tolstoy, 104UNCERTAINTY principle, 57uniformity of nature, 63 , 93universals, 33utility, 173VIRTUE, philosophical incentives to, 156 ; meaning of, 157vivacity, 60 , 71 ff.; synonyms for, 72von Wright, Professor, G. H., 83"War and Peace", 104weight of evidence, 101Whitehead, Professor, 114will, 115Wittgenstein, Professor, 108

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[D. G. C. Macnabb] David Hume His Theory of Knowl(BookZZ.org)